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“Get her out of here,” Kylo ground out.
“No,” I said, glancing back at the father whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn. “He needs me to put pressure on his wounds.”
Right?
That was what you were supposed to do.
Keep the blood in as well as you could.
Even if the shirt seemed to be getting pretty saturated, the hot, sticky blood starting to stain my hands.
I reached back, grabbing another shirt, then pressing it into the wound on his thigh.
“You’re going to be okay, Kylo,” I said, blinking as tears flooded, then started to spill from my eyes.
“I’m not,” he said, shaking his head, resigned to his fate. “But you did good, darlin’,” he said, trying to give me a small smile. “Don’t feel guilty.”
“Stop talking like you’re dying. You’re not dying,” I said, even as he seemed to start to lose the battle with his heavy eyelids. “No. Stay awake,” I cried, pushing harder into his wounds, the pain making his eyes shoot open. “Hear that?” I asked. “That’s the paramedics,” I told him.
“I, ah, I’ll go lead them in,” the father said, and I could hear his footsteps retreating.
“Who can I call?” I asked. “To come sit with you as they patch you up?” I asked, sniffling hard.
“No one,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “I got no one.”
“You have me,” I insisted, feeling like he needed something positive to cling to. Even if we’d only shared a couple of sentences a month since he’d moved in. No one deserved to feel all alone when they were severely injured. “You have me, okay?” I asked, blinking a new flood of tears down my face.
“Not for long,” he said. “But thanks for trying,” he said as the cops came rushing in, gazes taking in the scene.
One of them reached for the walkie-talkie thing on his shoulder, speaking rapidly to… someone.
“See? They got here in time. You’re gonna be okay,” I said, trying to give him a smile, even if I knew it looked ridiculous with the tears running down my face.
“Paramedics are right behind us,” one of the cops said.
“See?” I said, speaking to Kylo who was looking dangerously pale. “Told you so,” I said, sniffling. “They’ll take you in, slap a Band-Aid on your baby wounds, and send you back out again,” I told him, voice quivering as the adrenaline continued to surge.
I heard the sound of the paramedics moving down the hall.
Sensing my time with him was waning, and despite my comments to the contrary, I didn’t know if he was going to make it, I leaned forward toward him, lowering my voice so only he could hear.
“Listen, you have to make it, okay? You’re, like, the only… friend I have.”
“That’s sad, darlin’,” he said, voice sounding weaker. “But same,” he added, his dark gaze looking empty.
The paramedics were shouldering me out of the way then, and a hand was reaching down to help me onto my feet, pulling me out of the way, then out of the bedroom.
“What’s your name, honey?” the older police officer asked. He had a round face and kind blue eyes.
“I, ah, Siana. Siana Young. I, um, I live across the hall,” I said. “I heard the… the shots… and I… I came to check on him. It’sreally bad, isn’t it?” I asked, unable to see through the flood of tears in my eyes.
“He’s in good hands,” the officer said, not giving me any real reassurances. Even the best hands in the world wouldn’t save him if it was his time.
“Did you see anything?” the other cop asked. “Anyone?” he added.
My belly tensed as the memory of the three men flashed across my eyes.
They’d been so crisp in my mind a moment or two ago. Now they were blurring around the edges, making me question my own memory.
