Page 69 of Big Island Horizons
‘Olena blinked away tears and looked up. Just a few feet away, Nate had Zeke on the ground with his hands behind his back. Beyond that, two line cooks were staring open mouthed at the scene in front of them.
“Call an ambulance!” she shouted.
“We already did,” one of them said shakily. There were tears in his eyes. “Is he…”
“Do you have zip ties?” Nate asked.
They looked at him in confusion. “Zip ties?”
He nodded curtly.
“I… I think so. Just a sec.” He went inside and reappeared a moment later with a bag full of heavy black zip ties.
“Put them around his wrists,” Nate said.
The man stood frozen by the back door. His eyes flicked between Zeke and the gun that still lay on the pavement.
“I’ll hold him. I just need you to tie his wrists.”
The cook was shaking so badly that it took him a minute, but he managed to secure the zip ties around Zeke’s wrists.
Zeke himself was quiet. That one punch from Nate had nearly knocked him out cold.
“Tenn!” The fear and grief in Lani’s shout sent a wrenching spasm of pain through ‘Olena’s chest. She looked over her shoulder to see her cousin running towards them.
Lani stumbled and fell to her knees. Her back was to Zeke as she leaned over Tenn and took his face in her hands.
He was half conscious himself, glassy eyed and pale. He was so pale.
‘Olena leaned harder on his chest, desperate to stop him from losing more blood.
“Stay with me,” Lani pleaded, tears coursing down her face. “Please don’t leave me.”
Tenn met her eyes and smiled weakly.
“I’m here,” she said. “I’m here.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes drifted shut. His mouth went slack.
“No. No no no.”
Thin with distance, ‘Olena heard the sound of an ambulance siren.
Too far,she worried.Too late.
24
Tara
Tara hated hospitals. She always had.
She hated the harsh lights and sickening smell of antiseptic. The long, white hallways always made her anxious. They made her think of her mother’s rapid, horrible decline.
Being in a hospital – or worse, this same hospital – always brought her right back to those days, the endless drips of chemicals that had turned her mother into a ragged shadow of the woman she had once been.
Tara had successfully avoided setting foot in the hospital for years. She had birthed her babies at home, and she used butterfly bandages to close the kind of wounds that other people might get stitched up.
There wasn’t much that could persuade her to walk those sterile halls, but today she felt compelled. Just a few minutes, to drop off some food and ensure her friend that she had everything in hand. Lani deserved that much.
