Page 78 of Pretty Little Toy

“Please, Ilya. I love you. Please, don’t go.” I press my forehead to his and close my eyes, my hands searching for the worst of the bleeding as I try my best to staunch the blood pouring from his wounds. But I just don’t know which ones to cover. There are too many all across his broad back. I feel his life slipping through my fingers as I fear my pathetic attempt to help him isn’t enough. He might already be gone.

I don’t know how long I stay like that, clinging to Ilya as hard as I can, my eyes closed as I plead with him to stay with me. After what feels an eternity, the strobe of ambulance lights blare through my eyelids, and I open my eyes. The sound of sirens come into sharp focus, drowning out the deafening roar in my mind.

Someone in a navy-blue and reflective silver jacket approaches. “Ma’am, we’ve got him. You can let go now,” he says from what sounds like the other end of a long tunnel.

Dimly, I register the appearance of two more similarly dressed people, a man and a woman, as they lower a gurney beside Ilya.

Let go?The EMT’s words register belatedly in my head, and I turn to look back at Ilya’s devastatingly handsome face, seemingly drained of all blood until it’s moved past white to almost blue.How can I let go?Tears stream silently down my face now, and it takes everything in me to release my beloved Russian protector.

The EMTs immediately go to work, lifting him onto the gurney as one simultaneously checks for vital signs. I watch the woman as her brows furrow in deep concentration. Her fingers move from his wrist to his throat as she fails to get a pulse. Her frown deepens, and terror grips me as I brace myself for the confirmation that he’s already gone.

“I have a pulse!” she shouts suddenly, jolting my heart back to life. “Let’s get him to the hospital. Now!”

I rise with them as the EMTs race toward the ambulance. One diverts to the driver’s-side door as the first EMT and the woman EMT lift Ilya into the back. I climb in with him, and neither paramedic objects as they slam the door shut behind us.

“What happened?” demands the female EMT as she efficiently cuts Ilya’s tailor-made suit and shirt from his body.

The white fabric looks more like a wine red, it’s so saturated with blood, and I have to tear my eyes away from it in order to answer her. “They just drove by out of nowhere, and he turned to protect me. I don’t know how many times he got shot…”

“Help me flip him over,” the female commands her partner, and they roll him together, adjusting Ilya’s large frame onto his chest and exposing the extent of his wounds for the first time.

I cover my mouth as horror wells inside me. Eight bullet wounds puncture his strong back, none of which have made it out of his body as far as I could see. The female immediately sets to work packing the wounds to slow the bleeding as the man sets up an IV and EKG.

Those first blips of noise that tell me Ilya’s alive fill me with a dizzying sense of relief, and I sway in my seat.

“Whoa,” the male EMT says as he catches sight of my wobble. His attention shifts to me, and he crosses to my side of the ambulance as his partner continues to work on Ilya. “Are you alright? You look really pale. Were you hit?”

“No, I’m fine. Help Ilya,” I insist, trying to redirect him.

“Ma’am, he’s in good hands. And I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to neglect you when Annie’s got him covered until we get to the hospital. Let’s get you checked out.”

I’m too weak and shaky to put up much of an argument, so instead, I shrug out of my coat to prove that all the blood I’m covered in belongs to Ilya. Not me. “See? I’m fine.” My revealing dress makes it quickly apparent that Ilya’s fast thinking and protective maneuver saved me from any harm. I hold out my arms as the EMT scans me for any bullet holes, and a sharp pain zings across my left shoulder. “Ow,” I say in surprise, turning to look at what I must have bumped.

The gash I find bleeding freely several inches beneath my shoulder shocks me. I must have actually gotten shot as well.

“Looks like it’s just a graze,” the EMT says, grabbing gauze and firmly wrapping the wound. “Nothing a few stitches won’t fix.”

I nod mutely and turn my eyes back to Ilya’s unconscious form. My heart plummets as the EKG suddenly flatlines, releasing a persistent buzz.

“We’re losing him!” Annie barks, redirecting her attention from patching up the bullet wounds to the more pressing matter. “Fuck, Ronnie, help me flip him over!”

The male EMT turns to help her, and I look on helplessly as they get Ilya onto his back once more before pressing a defibrillator to his chest and just below his armpit.

“Clear!”

Ilya’s muscles tense, lifting his back up off the gurney, and I start to cry uncontrollably once more. I almost wish he would have just let me die beside him on the street because I’m sure I’m losing him. He’s lost too much blood already. I don’t see how he’s going to make it to the hospital alive.

“Clear!” Annie shouts again.

And then a third time, each failed attempt to restart Ilya’s heart sending me further down my spiral of anguish. Annie prepares for a fourth shock, and I wonder just how many times a body can take that kind of electrical jolt before the insides must turn to mush. I suppose the answer is as many times as it takes when the alternative is death.

Clinging to my bloody jacket like a safety blanket, I silently plead with Ilya, willing him to hear me, to come back to me. The persistent whine of the heart monitor stops, and I frown at it, wondering if the technology has decided to call time of death. Then a quiet blip announces the faintest heart beat.

“There you go, big guy,” Annie says, setting the defibrillator aside. “You don’t get to check out just yet.” She feels his wrist to track his pulse, and her eyes meet Ronnie’s. “It’s thready. We need to finish patching him up before he loses more blood.”

Ronnie nods, and together, they hoist him back onto his chest. Blood has already seeped through several of the bandages, and fresh crimson liquid darkens his skin around the two remaining exposed wounds. How one man can have sustained all that and still be alive, I don’t understand. But if anyone is strong enough to survive this, it’s Ilya.

In that moment, my mind flashes back to the night I came to his house several weeks ago, when I found his office in a shambles. One singular memory stands out to me, filling me with intense emotion as I recall collapsing onto Ilya’s chest at the end of our first orgasmic round of rough sex. At the time, I’d been so lost in the haze of my own euphoria, that I hadn’t really thought about just how powerful his heart beat. But now it comes back to me vividly. The strong thrum of life filling my ear as I enjoyed the simple yet meaningful connection.

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