Page 91 of Finding Home with You

I feel his lips near my neck, his warm breath slow and menacing in my ear, and even though I can’t see them, I know his eyes are still on Ryan. “Turn around, Erin,” he murmurs and I shake my head nearly imperceptibly.

My head is still throbbing from the earlier hit, pulsing and painful, and I know my noncompliance will bring another, but I can’t bring myself to turn around.

I can’t look at him, my stomach churning at the thought.

“I won’t ask you again,” Anthony says, his voice strangely calm.

Without looking at me Ryan says, “Do what he asks, Erin.” And again, my head moves back and forth, but I feel my body betray me and I turn.

My chest is now flush with Anthony’s as it heaves in and out, and his free arm that was once holding mine, slips around my waist, pulling me even closer.

“Put your elbows on my shoulders and wrap your hands around the back of my head,” Anthony orders, and it’s then that I know what he’s doing.

If my body is wrapped around his, no one can shoot. Shooting Anthony means killing me too.

“I’m going to leave with her,” Anthony says, acting like we aren’t in the middle of a fucking standoff. “And if you follow me, I’ll have you killed. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. It could even be ten years from now when you think you’re safe and you think this is over…” he trails off, his words interrupted by Ryan.

“You’re not going anywhere, and you’re definitely not taking Erin with you. This is going to end today, and I’m certain it’s not going to end well for you.”

Laughing loudly at Ryan’s words, Anthony starts backing up, taking me with him despite my feet attempting to stay firmly rooted.

“Walk, Erin!” Anthony yells, his words scaring me, his demeanor well beyond crazy and unhinged at this point.

But as we move so does Ryan. For every step we take, Ryan takes two more, the distance between us never growing, and I can feel the frustration boiling inside of Anthony.

“I will fucking shoot you!” Anthony screams at Ryan, the trigger to his gun nearly level with my ear, and that’s when it happens.

This time when the gun fires the blast shatters the air around all of us, and I don’t know what’s louder, the gun or the scream that falls from my lips.

One single bullet ripping through flesh as the blood splatters my skin and the piercing pain shoots though me.

I collapse on the ground, Anthony’s body crushing me with its weight as I struggle to get him off me. I’m screaming for Ryan, repeating his name over and over.

I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m covered in blood and that’s when everything goes black.

Sirens ring out and screams can be heard, along with feet pounding the pavement, and I can hear Ryan’s voice shouting, “Get the fuck over here! She’s been shot.”

My eyes open slowly as the haze begins to disappear, revealing Ryan’s face as he’s kneeling down over me, fear blanketing everything.

My face feels wet and when I lift my hand to wipe at it, my cast is covered in blood; a small hole sits in the portion that wraps around my thumb.

“Look at me, Erin,” Ryan says firmly, his hands on either side of my cheeks. “Are you okay?” His shaky hands begin wiping at my face which I now realize is covered in blood.

Everything is covered in blood.

I turn away from him and vomit spectacularly on the pavement next to me just as a paramedic rushes up. Ryan removes my coat and tosses it to the side as the paramedic reaches for my casted arm, grabbing it; he begins to cut my cast off, the blade of the knife barely making a dent in it.

“We have to get this cast off,” the paramedic calls behind him to his partner who is now approaching with a gurney. Lifting me off the ground, Ryan sets me on the gurney and as I’m wheeled back to the ambulance I notice my coat lying on the ground.

“My coat,” I call out to Ryan, my body shuddering as the cold air bites at my skin, but Ryan just shakes his head. And that’s when I watch a team of people converge on my coat, gloved hands placing it into a large plastic bag.

I hear the small rotary saw’s buzzing before I see it, the vibration shaking my hand as the paramedic cuts off my cast. My arm is extended over a silver bowl and the small clink is barely heard when the bullet fragment drops into it. And again a pair of gloved hands swoop in, taking the bowl and dropping the metal shard into an envelope.

The noise of the bullet fragment jars my memory and I look right at Ryan, saying, “You killed him. You shot him.”

In that moment my body is strangely reactive to my words, a mix of sadness and elation washing over me as I begin to cry again. I’ve wished for this moment more times than I can remember, but now that it’s happened I’m overcome with a weird sense of guilt.

“I didn’t,” Ryan insists, shaking his head, my face in his hands again, and I’m not sure if he thinks I’m blaming him, that I’m angry with him. But relief crashes into me, making me grateful that Ryan played no part in Anthony’s death.

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