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Bree takes a small step forward, keeping her voice even. “Look, there’s no way out of this. Why don’t you just let her go, and you can leave here alive?”
“You will let me leave here alive?” he asks sceptically, and I watch Bree closely to see what she’s about to say.
“Yes, I will let you walk out of that front door, very much alive,” she says, and I can’t help the smirk that spreads across my lips.
Bree is making sure to remain as vague as possible, so she can stick to her word. He can walk out of here alive, but there’snothing stopping us from shooting him the minute he’s outside. It’s a smart loophole she’s well known for.
“What’s the catch?” The Sheriff asks dubiously, thinking—correctly—that the offer is too good to be true.
“All you have to do is let Lilly go,” Bree explains.
“Yes, please let me go,” Lilly adds desperately.
The Sheriff hits her with the butt of the gun, smashing it into her temple as she screams in pain. Blood oozes from the cut on her forehead as he begins shouting. “Shut the fuck up, bitch. I’m trying to think.”
As blood pours from Lilly’s head, and she begins to sway from the impact of the blow, Teigan shouts for her. She quickly moves around me and charges towards her friend, not even thinking about the fucking situation going on around her.
The Sheriff spots her moving at the same time I do, and all hell breaks loose. I grab hold of Teigan and try to pull her back, and The Sheriff begins firing his gun. He’s not aiming at anyone in particular, he just swings his arm around frantically, shooting until the gun clicks and it’s clear his chamber is empty.
He looks around frantically as he holds the empty gun in his hand. It only takes him a fraction of a second to realise how fucked he is. Several head shots hit him from all angles, and he drops to the floor. Killed within an instant.
As the dust begins to settle, adrenaline is coursing through my veins as I look around for Teigan. I see her on the floor in front of me, and I drop to my knees beside her, wincing as pain ricochets throughout my body. My vision starts to go woozy, black spots invading the corners, but I blink them away.
I place my hands on Teigan, desperately trying to check she’s okay. “Teigan! Angel, are you okay? Are you hit?” I ask, running my hands over her body.
She’s laying on her belly, her hands covering her head, and on feeling me touching her, she quickly turns over, getting ontoher knees to look at me. As soon as I can see she’s not injured, relief floods my body. I breathe a sigh of relief, sagging as the depleting adrenaline leaves me suddenly exhausted.
Teigan’s relieved expression she was wearing when she first turned over is soon replaced by a look of concern. “Evan, are you okay?” she asks.
Before I have a chance to answer, a gut-wrenching scream fills the room, and we both turn around. Bree is in the centre of the room, holding Liam’s body in her arms. His eyes are closed, he’s unmoving, and the T-shirt he’s wearing is covered with blood.
Bree presses her hands against his stomach, and they quickly turn crimson from the blood pouring out of my brother. Her screams and cries for help fill the room, and my heart breaks as I take in the sight of my brother’s broken body.
Cold drifts through my veins like someone pours ice water through them, and the dizziness I tried to push away before comes back with a vengeance. The edges of my vision start to go black, and pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt before punches through my side.
I fall to the floor, my eyes locked on my brother’s body, and the last thing I hear before the darkness takes me is Teigan screaming in pain, the same noise Bree made just a few seconds earlier.
The only way to describe the noise is one of pure agony and heartbreak, and it kills me to know I’m the one who made my angel feel that.
Eight hours. Four hundred and eight minutes. Twenty-eight thousand and eight hundred seconds. That’s how long it’s been since I last saw Evan. That’s how long I’ve been sitting in this damn hospital waiting room, wondering if I’ve lost the love of my life.
Time seems to have passed by at a mind-numbingly boring pace since my world went to shit. I barely remember what happened at the club, as it all seemed to happen so quickly. One minute, The Sheriff was holding a gun at Lilly’s head, and the next, the room was full of smoke and my heart was breaking.
Evan took a bullet to save me. I wasn’t thinking when I surged forward to get to Lilly. I couldn’t just stand there, seeing the vacant yet terrified expression in her eyes, and not do something. I was a fucking idiot.
As soon as I took off running towards him, The Sheriff started shooting. He fell to the floor mere seconds later, dead with several bullets to the head, but it was too late. When the smoke began to fade, I saw how much damage I’d caused.
Not only had Evan taken a bullet to the abdomen while trying to save me, Liam was also on the floor. I watched as Bree scooped him into her arms, and he didn’t move. The loud guttural scream that broke from her lips was like nothing I’ve ever heard before.
I imagine it’s what a wounded animal would sound like, when they were in fear of their lives. Only Bree isn’t fearing for her life. She’s terrified she’s just lost the man she loves—which is something I can relate to.
As I pressed my hand to Evan’s wound, his eyelids fluttering shut as he moaned in pain, I was actually grateful that I knew he wasn’t dead yet. Liam looked like a corpse in Bree’s arms—unmoving, blood seeping out everywhere, pale as a sheet.
I looked around at the devastation I’d caused, but I pushed the guilt and shame to one side. I couldn’t sit here feeling sorry for myself while there were people much worse than me. When the time comes, I will own up to the part I played, and accept the consequences, but for now, I need to be here for Evan.
The paramedics arrived very quickly, and though the first team went straight to Liam, the ones who came for Evan arrived only minutes later. Finn pulled me into his arms when the paramedics started yelling at me to back away, so they could work. I know logically I needed to let them help him, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go of Evan’s hand.
His eyes were closed, and his chest was only rising and falling every so often, but whenever it did, my heart beat out of its chest. It meant Evan had taken another breath, and was still alive. He was fighting to be with me, and that was all I had to hold on to.
