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Something was wrong; I knew that immediately, but I prayed to a god that I didn’t even believe in that she was okay.
“Fawn!”
I went to the den, saw the place where Fawn usually lay on the couch, but there was no sign of her.
“Come quickly!” Priest yelled.
I ran toward the sound of his voice, the urgency in it filling me with even more dread. Priest was never urgent; this could not be good. I rushed into the kitchen and my hands dropped to my sides, fingers loosening as the gun I held fell to the floor with a clatter.
My gaze was glued to Fawn’s prone form, and I barely heard Priest’s words. I saw a dead Oleg and the open door, but that was background noise because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Fawn, or the blood that pooled around her, couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
She lay flat on her stomach, not moving. But I didn’t go to her, couldn’t. She was so still. I shuddered. She looked?—
“She’s not dead,” Priest said, and that confirmation broke the cement that had held me in place.
I didn’t carry a cell phone, and an ambulance would probably take its sweet time getting to us anyway. I had no other choice, so I rolled her, feeling some small measure of relief when she moaned. But it was only the confirmation that she was alive, because everything else about her looked otherwise, like the vivid life that had animated her had been ripped away, and it left me breathless, on the verge of panic with worry.
Her skin was bluish, ashen, but that couldn’t hide the huge bruise on her cheek or her blackened eyes. And worse yet, her legs were covered with blood, blood that still dripped from her fast enough that it left a trail behind her as I ran to the car.
Priest hopped into the front seat, and I lay Fawn across the back and sat next to her. He slammed on the gas before I’d even closed the door. She looked so peaceful, and though I knew she breathed, I didn’t know for how long.
“Not yet, Fawn,” I said on a raw whisper, voice wavering with the desperate fear that threatened to overtake me, only held back by the fact that as I held her hand, some warmth returned to it. “Just hold on. Both of you.”
Six minutes passed between the time I first saw her and the time I ran into the emergency room, but it was long enough for me to determine what would happen if I lost her. Whoever had done this, anyone who’d helped was dead. But if she didn’t make it, I would seek my vengeance and then join her in death. There could be no life for me without her.
“She needs help,” I bellowed, ignoring the shocked faces of patients and staff.
The once bustling room went silent, and then sprung to life, doctors and nurses swarming around me.
“Lay her here!” someone yelled.
I did, and then she was whisked away. I rushed to follow, but a tight grip on my arm stopped me.
“You can’t do anything in there.”
It was Priest, and I turned to look at him, noting he seemed to have recovered from his earlier urgency.
“Find them,” I said.
He nodded and was gone in an instant, leaving me alone, the fate of the only woman I’d ever loved, the baby I had just begun to accept, hanging in the balance.
* * *
Vasile
“Hey,” I said when she finally opened her eyes.
It’d been hours since they had let me back into the hospital room where they’d put her, and I hadn’t left her side.
She looked around the small room, cheery curtains on the windows and neutral paint on the walls only managing to make the place feel even more depressing. And then she laid a hand on her stomach and then pulled it away.
“The baby…”
“Is in the nursery. A girl just like you said,” I whispered as I smoothed her hair. I’d been convinced I was having a son, but that didn’t matter now. My heart gave a funny little thud. Fawn and I had a precious baby girl.
“Have you seen her?” Fawn asked, the skin around her eyes crinkling with a slight smile.
“I wanted to wait for you,” I replied, barely able to get out the words.
