And it’s growing.
25
“Fuck. Chase. No.”
The words are a primal grunt as Dax falls to his knees beside his brother. The two boys who usually appear so alike look as different as night and day right now. Chase’s golden skin is pale, washed out, and he looks thinner somehow.
Is that possible? Or is it just the slackness of his face that makes him seem that way?
There is one way they look similar—they’re both dressed in red. The wound in Dax’s shoulder pours blood, and even though he hasn’t lost nearly as much as Chase, it doesn’t look good.
“Put pressure on it!”
My voice doesn’t sound like my own as I glance around wildly, but River is already there, pressing the heel of his hand hard to Dax’s shoulder. Dax is trying to get to Chase, but with the way his right arm is hanging limp, he won’t be able to put enough weight on his brother’s wound to staunch the bleeding.
I lean over the copper haired boy with the too-pale skin, my fingertips slipping over slick red blood as I try to find the bullet hole. It’s high on his chest on the left side, but it can’t have hit his heart. It can’t have. A pulse flickers in his neck, fluttering beneath the skin, and I press both my hands to the place where blood seeps from him.
But I can barely keep pressure on it either. I’m not hurt like Dax is, but my vision is still swimming from the blow to the head, and my arms are shaking so badly it’s hard for me to keep my elbows locked.
“I got it, Low. Let me. Let me, baby.”
Lincoln’s voice in my ear is like a healing balm to my soul, and I fall back onto my butt as he takes over. His knuckles are bloody, and his face is bruised, a trail of red trickling from the corner of his mouth where it looks like he split his lip, but his expression is a mask of concentration as he finds Chase’s wound, then tears off his own shirt and wads it up, holding it firmly against the bleeding hole.
“Hollowell…” I mutter raggedly, unable to tear my gaze away from Chase’s face. River and Dax watch him too, all four of us pouring our concentration onto him as if we could heal him with our love alone.
“Dead.” Lincoln’s voice holds no emotion. “I already checked. And I called 911. They’ll be here soon.”
Soon.
That word holds no fucking meaning when your world just exploded into violence, when someone you love is pouring his lifeblood onto a cold, unfeeling floor.
But soon is all we have, so we wait, still and quiet, our voices strangled with fear, as the wail of sirens grows louder.
The little gray fox by the fireplace must’ve been hit by a stray bullet. It lies on its side, still attached to the little pedestal, staring up at the ceiling like it’s sniffing the air.
Forever frozen in time.
The police arrive with the paramedics, and as soon as they do, a new kind of chaos erupts. It’s the good kind, I know it is, but it’s hard for my brain to process that when I just want to shut out the whole world. Everything is too loud, moving too fast, and Chase and Dax are whisked away into an ambulance after the paramedics pry the rest of us away from them.
I watch them go with my heart in my throat, and the only comforting thought I have as they disappear from sight is that at least they’re together.
They have each other.
And Dax won’t let Chase die.
The police are moving around the space, cordoning off areas and placing markers near pieces of evidence. They question us briefly, and I’m a little afraid they’re going to make us tell them the whole story right now and that I definitely won’t be able to tell it without losing my shit completely.
But the paramedics take a look at me, shine a light in my eyes, and tell the officers who arrived on the scene that I need to go to the hospital too. River and Linc come with me, and as soon as the ambulance doors close behind us, exhaustion washes over me like a blanket of darkness.
We’re still quiet. None of us know what to say. There’s nothing to say until we know if Chase is okay. Grief sits in my chest like a gathering tidal wave, held back only by a thin barrier of hope.
A thought pricks at the back of my mind, and I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. There are fifteen texts from Hunter, the tone of each one growing increasingly frantic. I scroll down to the last three.
HUNTER: Please text me if you get this!!!
HUNTER: Are you okay??
HUNTER: If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’m calling the cops. Fuck, I should have already, no matter what you said. Call me!!! Please!!
She sent that one eight minutes ago.
My fingers shake as I tap out a message, the paramedic moving around in the small space by my head and Linc and River sitting alongside me, hands resting on my hip and thigh.
Possessive.
Reassuring.
ME: I’m okay. I’m so fucking sorry, Hunter. I know I scared the shit out of you. I didn’t mean to.
HUNTER: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, LOW! What the fuck happened??? What’s going on??
My eyes are getting bleary. It’s hard to focus on the screen well enough to type out a message, but I blink a few times and try again.
ME: I’ll tell you everything. I promise.
And I mean it. I will.
Because I finally can.
26
“You fucking asshole.”
Those are the first words Dax says to Chase when his brother wakes up.
He was in surgery for several hours, and the doctor said he was incredibly lucky the bullet missed both his heart and his lung. He needed an immediate blood transfusion due to heavy blood loss, and Doctor Campbell said if the
