I felt the button and zipper on my shorts release, giving Aiden better access to me. I was moaning, but not giving up. I twisted my legs around and tried to push him off of me that way, but it was futile. The person trying to call was just as insistent.
“Dammit!” Aiden said with a growl. “I’m going to kill whoever keeps calling!”
“Ugh! Just answer it already!”
Aiden pushed himself off of me and stomped into the kitchen. I started to follow, zipping my shorts back up along the way. There wasn’t any reason to make things easier on him, and I was enjoying the game.
“How the fuck did they get the address? Christ, Mo!”
I fluffed up my hair. The carpet had already tangled it all up. Aiden’s escapades were murder on my hairstyle.
“Chloe, get in the bedroom,” Aiden said.
“What?” I asked as I paused outside the kitchen to adjust my shirt. I heard another noise outside and tilted my head to look out the window at a red sedan in the driveway. It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it right away.
Aiden was suddenly beside me again, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me back into the kitchen. My feet slipped out from under me, and I nearly fell.
“Don’t look out there!” he yelled. He grabbed my arm roughly and yanked me to his chest.
“Aiden!” I cried as he pulled me backward. “What the hell?”
“How far away is Lo?” Aiden said into the phone, ignoring my protests.
I turned to look back at his pale face. He was looking from the front door to the back quickly. The phone was wedged between his jaw and his shoulder, and his eyes were wide.
“He better hurry. They’re already here,” Aiden said bluntly before he let the phone drop to the ground.
I screamed as I heard a crashing sound from behind me. Glass was suddenly everywhere—all over the kitchen and part of the living room. The top half of the sliding door to the patio had been smashed.
Aiden dragged me toward the counter and grabbed one of the larger kitchen knives just as I saw a huge rock slam into the bottom half of the patio door, adding to the shattered glass on the floor. The two people who were just outside now stepped through the broken door.
I knew who they were immediately, even before I realized the car in the driveway had been the same one that sped off from the strip mall. I recognized them as the man and woman who had been firing guns at the restaurant’s back door as they fled. These were the people responsible for the death of Aiden’s son.
Chris Marc and Corinne Hayden were in the house, and I was staring right down the barrel of the gun in Corinne’s hand. Chris had one pointed at Aiden, and the cold smile on his face stopped my heart.
It wasn’t a dream. We weren’t “Red Shirts” in a movie or television series. There were people in Aiden’s house, people with one thing on their minds. They weren’t vampires, and I didn’t have any stakes. They weren’t supervillains, and I wasn’t wearing any bulletproof bracelets. They weren’t going to offer us some long discussion about how their plans weren’t to be foiled.
In fact, only three syllables were uttered.
“Say bye-bye,” Corinne said.
“No!” Aiden screamed.
Everything happened so quickly, but I remembered every second of it like it was etched into my brain. There was a flash from Corinne’s gun. At the same time, the front door burst open, and I heard Lo’s voice.
“HUNTER!”
Aiden was in front of me so fast, I never saw him move. He was just there, blocking my view of Chris and Corinne as a blast made my ears ring so badly I went deaf for a moment. Then Aiden was on the floor at my feet, and Lo and Mo appeared around the corner from the kitchen with guns in their hands, screaming at Chris and Corinne to get down.
Seconds really can last a lifetime.
There was blood on the tiles, seeping through a hole in Aiden’s shirt. I was sure it hadn’t been there a moment ago. I blinked a few times and shook my head. I still couldn’t hear properly. The kitchen knife had fallen from Aiden’s hand and bounced underneath the table.
“Aiden?”
Mo had Chris down on the carpet near the back door, surrounded by glass, his knee in the center of Chris’s back. Chris was screaming about being cut. Lo had Corinne up against the wall, yelling at her to stop moving as he clamped handcuffs around her wrists.
I blinked again. Aiden’s head rolled slightly to the side, nudging against my foot. I knelt slowly, unable to fathom what was happening around me, and placed my hand on his chest. My hand got sticky, and red fluid oozed between my fingers. I didn’t understand where it was coming from.
“Aiden?” I slipped my hand under his head, pulling it onto my thigh. His eyes closed briefly and then opened again, staring up, but not seeing anything. I place my other hand on the side of his face, smearing his cheek with red. There was shouting all around me, but nothing made sense. I felt cold, and my mind was blank.
Flashing lights.
Sirens.
There was noise all around me. Unfamiliar voices spoke quickly and violently as the room filled with people. My knees hurt as I knelt on the tile floor with Aiden’s head in my lap. He was staring up at me with blank eyes, and his chest rose and fell with quick, staccato breaths. He was shaking. No…wait…I was shaking as I held him.
A woman in a blue uniform was speaking to me, but I couldn’t comprehend her words. A man in white and green crouched in front of me and held Aiden’s wrist between his fingers.
“Please, ma’am, we need you to back away.”
I looked toward the sound of the man’s voice but didn’t move. Arms were linked around my shoulders, pulling me from the floor as the man took Aiden’s head and laid it on top of a rolled up towel.
“Aiden? Aiden!”
“I got you.” Lo’s voice was in my ear as his arms went around my shoulders, pulling me back. “Take a breath, Chloe. I got you.”
More people dressed in white and green gathered around with bags in their hands, blocking my view. I knew in the back of my mind that something was seriously wrong, but I couldn’t grasp what it was. What was the red on the floor? Why wasn’t Aiden moving?
My head jerked back as it all hit me.
The barrel of the gun, pointed right at me. Aiden’s quick movement. The blast. Aiden on the floor, covered in blood.
“Aiden’s been shot!” I screamed.
Frantic now, I tried to escape from the arms holding me back. My legs were weak, and they refused to hold me upright any longer. Lo’s voice was in my ear.
“I know. I know, babe. They’re going to take care of him. We just need to let them do their jobs now.”
“No!” I kept struggling but was becoming weaker by the moment. None of this was right. None of this made any sense. This could not possibly be happening. My peripheral vision darkened. Everything else went fuzzy as dizziness overcame me. None of my muscles would respond to my mental commands, and I started to fall as darkness surrounded me.
A moment later, I was on the couch in the living room with a blanket pulled up to my chest. My feet were resting on top of a pillow, and there was a woman in green kneeling beside me.
“Chloe?”
“Is she awake?” Lo’s face loomed above me.
“Can you tell me your full name?” the woman asked.
“Chloe Ellison,” I replied automatically.
“What’s your address, Chloe?”
I rattled it off as I tried to raise my head and look around the room.
“Where’s Aiden?”
“He’s on his way to the hospital,” Lo said. “Listen to the nice lady, and then I’ll take you there.”
“He got shot,” I whispered as tears began to fill my eyes. “Lo, she was shooting at me, and he got in the way!”
“Well, you must be someone pretty damn special then, don’t you think?”
Four hours.
Aiden had been in surgery for four hours.
No one would tell me a
nything. Apparently, being the girlfriend meant nothing. The receptionist wouldn’t tell us what was happening, and the police kept showing up and asking me all kinds of questions. I tried to answer them, but it all kept coming back to the same thing.
He took a bullet for me.
Eventually, they left. Redeye and Lance came in shortly afterward and spoke to Lo and Mo, heads bent together and glancing at me where I sat and waited in one of those hard, plastic chairs and stared at Aiden’s red baseball cap as I held it tightly in my hands. I could hear their conversation, but the words weren’t really registering in my head.
“What are they saying?” Redeye asked Lo.
“They’re trying to reach his mother,” Lo said as he glanced over at me. “They won’t talk to any of us.”
“Lance, why don’t you help Chloe out?” Redeye said. “I’m gonna take care of this.”
“I got her.” Lance came over to my chair and reached for my hand. “Jennifer gave me some clothes she thought would fit you. Let’s get you changed.”
“But they haven’t found his Mom yet,” I protested. “They won’t tell me how he is!”
“Leave it to me,” Redeye said with a wink. He walked over to the receptionist and leaned against the counter as Lance coaxed me out of the chair and toward the nearby bathroom.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
I could only stare at him. Did I need help? Yes, I did. I needed someone to tell me what the hell was going on behind the large doors marked “SURGERY.”
“Come on,” Lance said quietly.
He pulled me inside and locked the bathroom door. He closed the toilet lid before sitting me down on it and then filled up the sink with warm water and soap from the dispenser. He took Aiden’s cap from me and placed it on the back of the toilet, then pulled off my blood-stained T-shirt and shorts. He left them on the floor as he used some paper towels to wash the blood from my hand and legs.
I just sat there watching the red-stained towels multiply in the trashcan.
Lance pulled out a clean shirt and a pair of yoga pants from the bag and helped me get them on as he tried his best to stare at the floor.
“I’m just gonna put your clothes back in the bag,” he said. “I’ll make sure they get back to you, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied mechanically.
Once I was cleaned up, Lance handed me the cap and led me back to the waiting room and sat me down next to Lo. Redeye was still at the receptionist’s desk, but there was another hospital official with them now. I couldn’t hear the words, but Redeye was speaking very animatedly.
Another hour passed.
At some point, Redeye came back to the group and sat on the other side of Lo. They talked quietly while I sat and watched the hands of the clock on the wall move incredibly slowly.
“Miss Ellison?” A man in green scrubs with a badge on his shirt walked over to us.
I stood up and took a step forward. Lo did the same.
“Yes?” I croaked.
“You’re here for Aiden Hunter, correct?” he said quietly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“I’m Doctor Miller,” he said as he shook my hand briefly. “I’m the surgeon who’s been working on Aiden.”
“How is he?” I couldn’t stop the tears, but Lo was right there beside me, holding my hand.
“Well, he’s out of surgery now,” Doctor Miller said, “and since we haven’t been able to locate any next of kin,” he paused and glanced at Redeye, who raised an eyebrow, “we’re going to let you go see him for a little while.”
“Is he going to be all right?” I asked.
“He’s not completely out of the woods yet,” the doctor said. “The bullet was lodged next to his spine, but I didn’t see any cord damage. We had to repair his intestine, and there was a lot of internal bleeding, but we got it all. I can’t tell you anything for sure until he’s awake, but it looks good right now.”
If Lo hadn’t been holding on to me, I probably would have fallen to the floor. Mo stepped up on my other side, and they both helped me back into the chair. Redeye crouched down beside me.
“That’s good news, Chloe,” Redeye said softly as he rubbed my shoulder. “Hunter’s a tough one. He isn’t going to let this stop him. It’s good news—focus on that.”
I nodded. Aiden was strong. He’d be okay. I had to believe that because anything else was too painful to think about.
“You can come see him now but just for a minute. He’s still going to be out for a while, and we need to let him rest.”
“Go ahead, Chloe,” Lo said as he gave me a gentle push. “Tell him we’re all out here rooting for him.”
I followed Doctor Miller through several sets of double doors and down a long hallway. There were doctors and nurses everywhere, some behind desks and others rolling patients around on gurneys. The doctor led me to a glass-walled room, and I looked at a bed with lots of machines surrounding it. He opened the door and motioned me inside.
“I’ll give you a couple of minutes alone with him,” Doctor Miller said. “Don’t try to wake him up or anything, but you can talk to him. You can hold his hand if you want. Just be careful of his IV.”
I walked in slowly, fiddling with the cap in my hands. The doctor closed the door behind me partway, leaving just a crack still open. I bit down on my lip and looked at the bed.
Aiden was lying there, hooked up to all kinds of equipment. He had a big plastic mask taped over his mouth, a needle sticking out of his hand, with a tube leading up to an IV bottle. His entire torso was covered in a huge bandage, and there were wires attached to him all over, leading back to the machines around the bed.
I pulled up a chair and sat by his side, leaving the cap to rest in my lap.
“Oh, Aiden,” I whispered. I took his hand in mine, but it was limp—lifeless. I swallowed down the sob in my throat and squeezed his fingers gently. “I’m here.”
I wiped tears away from my cheek with the back of my hand.
“Everyone is here,” I corrected myself. “Mo followed the ambulance, and Lo brought me to the hospital once the paramedics said I was okay. Lance and Redeye are here, too. I don’t know how, but I think Redeye convinced them to let me see you.”
The machines beeped rhythmically. Aiden remained motionless as scenes from his house flashed in my mind.
“Aiden…I don’t even know what to say to you,” I admitted. “You saved my life—I’m sure you did. You didn’t have to do that, Aiden.”
My throat was sore and my voice hoarse. I swallowed a few times before I tried to go on.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for that.”
I tried to blink back more tears, but it didn’t help.
“You taught me so much, Aiden. Everything you’ve done for me…I can’t even comprehend this now. You have to hang in there so I can give you a proper thank you. You know that, right? You taught me how to live, but you have to stay with me, you hear that? You have to stay with me.”
“Miss Ellison?”
I glanced up at Doctor Miller as I tightened my grip on Aiden’s hand.
“Can I stay a little longer?”
“Not just yet,” he said. “You aren’t technically allowed back here at all, really, but we’ve made an exception. Right now, Aiden needs to sleep so he can recover. When he’s awake and stable, you can come back again.”
I nodded, understanding somewhere in my head that he was right, but I didn’t like it. I gripped his cap in my free hand and stood up slowly, holding on to Aiden’s fingers as long as I could. As I let go, I leaned over and kissed his forehead. I wanted to put the cap on his head just so he would have it with him, but I couldn’t with all the equipment in the way.
“I’ll be right out in the waiting room,” I told him. “I’ll see you again soon.”
A nurse led me back out through the hospital maze while Doctor Miller checked on Aiden. All the guys stood up when I walked back out.
“How is he doing?”
Lo asked.
I tried not to fall apart as I told them how he looked.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Redeye assured me with a hug. “I know him—he’s gonna be just fine.”
Lance handed me a tissue from one of the boxes on the tables, and I wiped tears away from my face. It didn’t seem to matter—they wouldn’t stop. After a few minutes, I managed to catch my breath and calm down a little.
“What did you say to them?” I asked Redeye.
“What do you mean?”
“They weren’t going to let me see him. Why did they change their minds?”
“I can be very convincing.” He grinned at me.
“I’ve noticed,” I replied. I sniffed and wiped my nose. “So what did you say?”
“Well…” Redeye chuckled, “some people just don’t quite understand the situation staring them in the face. They need someone to hold up a mirror just to let them know they’re breathing. Once I explained that you were the one he took the bullet for, and that I’d be happy to call a press conference over the whole thing, they saw things my way.”
“What happened to them?” I turned to Lo. “What happened to Chris and Corinne?”
“Mo and I kept them covered until the police could take them,” Lo said. “I think he’s talking to the station now.”
Lo nodded toward the doors of the waiting room where Mo was on the phone.
“I don’t think they’re going anywhere anytime soon,” Lance said.
“Fucked with the wrong people,” Redeye said. “That’s what they did.”
“You said it,” Lance agreed.
Mo walked back up to us.
“They’re being held without bond,” he said. “With all the other stuff they’re wanted for, this is apparently just icing. Considering they were caught on the scene and everything, they’re expected to plead guilty.”
“Hunter will be glad to hear that,” Lance said.
I tried to find some sense of joy that Chris Marc and Corinne Harper were behind bars and not going anywhere for a long time, but I just couldn’t. I kept seeing the image of Aiden on the floor of the kitchen, covered in blood.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there in the waiting room. Lance tried to talk me into going to the cafeteria for something, but I wouldn’t budge. He ended up bringing me back a sandwich and some coffee, which I tried to consume out of politeness but just couldn’t stomach. The sandwich got a little hard, and the coffee went cold before anyone came out to talk to us again.