Page 62 of Little Dolls

They had her.

That he had no idea what they had planned for her was leaving him struggling for control. He assumed they planned to kill her at some point, but maybe they had something else in store for her first. Somehow they had convinced Thomas Karl to recreate their crimes; perhaps they thought they could get the other survivor to do the same.

Battling fear for Clara, he dashed down the stairs and back to Naomi, flicking on the lights as he went. Her eyes were closed, the towel had fallen from her shoulder to the floor, and her right hand was now resting on her stomach. She’d passed out again.

Blood was pooling around her and soaked through his pants as he knelt at her side. Jonathon was extremely concerned about her. If help didn’t arrive soon then he was scared she was going to bleed to death, and he didn’t want to have to tell Clara when he found her—when, not if—that her sister was dead.

“Come on, Naomi, hang in there.” He pressed another towel firmly against her shoulder.

Naomi whimpered in pain, and her eyes opened slowly. Her breathing was labored now, too fast and too shallow, her skin was cold and clammy, she was pale and her lips were tinted with blue. She’d lost too much blood, she was going into hypovolemic shock.

“Naomi, look at me.” Her eyes moved to meet his. “You have to hold on, okay? Help will be here soon.”

“It hurts,” she cried.

“I know it does,” he soothed. “I’m just going to grab a blanket; I need to keep you warm. You’re in shock. Here, hold this again,” he took her icy hand and put it on the towel.

So long as he had something to concentrate on to keep him focused, he could keep his panic at bay. Retrieving a blanket from the sitting area, he was just spreading it over Naomi when he heard footsteps. He hadn’t heard or seen any lights or sirens, so he didn’t think it was either backup or the ambulance. He wondered whether it could be the Doll Killers returned for some reason, maybe to make sure Naomi was dead.

Blocking Naomi as best he could while keeping pressure on her wound, he had his gun pointed at the door when the doorknob rattled. He tensed. If it was the Doll Killers, he’d have to resist the urge to shoot them on the spot for everything they'd done to Clara, Dora, and all those other children. But if they had Clara now, then he needed them alive to find her.

The door opened, and the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding rushed out in a whoosh of relief. “I need help here, now.”

Dylan and Davis Merritt turned toward him. Their eyes grew wide when they caught sight of the blood-soaked body behind him.

“What happened? Who is that?” Dylan demanded

“It’s Naomi.”

Both men’s faces drained of color as they came closer, leaving them as pale as Naomi herself. Dylan recovered quicker than his younger brother. “Where’s Clara?”

Jonathon met the man’s green eyes, so like Clara’s eyes. “Gone.”

Shock and terror flooded their faces, but Dylan immediately bottled it up and knelt beside Naomi. “How bad is she?”

“She was hit over the head and stabbed in the left shoulder; she’s already lost a lot of blood. Alotof blood,” he repeated.

“Conscious?” Dylan took another towel and Jonathon removed the blood-drenched one he’d been using. That was three towels soaked through now.

“In and out.”

“Naomi?” Dylan’s voice was very gentle as he brushed away a lock of hair from her blood-streaked cheek. “Come on, honey, open your eyes for me.”

She complied, her lids sluggishly lifting, her pain-dulled eyes darted around before settling on Clara’s brother. “Dylan?”

“Right here, sweetheart.”

“So tired,” she murmured.

“I know, honey, but you stay with me, all right?”

“Bang . . . downstairs . . . knife . . . Clara . . . tried . . .” she mumbled incoherently. “Where’s Clara?”

Jonathon didn’t want her to know her sister was missing right now. Given her condition, he didn’t want to upset her. He was going to tell Dylan that, but the other man was apparently on the same page. “An ambulance will be here any minute now, help is coming, you just need to hold on a little while longer.” Despite the fear in his eyes, Dylan was able to keep his voice perfectly soothing and comforting, which was helping to keep Naomi calm.

Dylan pressed the towel more firmly against Naomi’s wound, causing her to whimper in pain. “It hurts.”

“I know. I'm sorry, honey, but I have to keep pressure on this.”

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