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If anything had happened to him, I wouldn’t cope.
I couldn’t think about it.
“Joey!” My voice cracked and I clung tighter to his baby brother. “Joey, please tell me you’re okay!”
“Molloy,” I heard him call back, and the sound of his voice gave me the courage I needed to cross the threshold of the doorway and step into the kitchen. I knew what I was about to witness would be bad, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my boyfriend, bloodied to a pulp, slumped on the kitchen floor, cradling the lifeless body of his sister in his arms.
The fact that Teddy was nowhere to be seen gave me little comfort in this moment. Because I knew that he had been here. This brutality had his name written all over it.
“What’s wrong with her?” I demanded, almost dropping Sean from the fright I got when my eyes absorbed the carnage in front of me. “Oh god, why is she bleeding out of her mouth?”
“She’s dying,” Tadhg screamed, shaking his mother’s shoulders. His mother who was sitting on the kitchen floor, holding a bag of frozen peas to her daughter’s chest like it was the solution to everything. “He killed my sister and you’re doing nothing.”
“Shannon, breathe,” Marie sobbed. “Breathe, Shannon. Breathe, baby. The ambulance is on the way.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Shh, I’ve got you.” Ignoring his mother, my boyfriend continued to whisper in his baby sister’s ear. “I love you. I love you, Shan. Just hold on for me, okay?”
“Shannon!”
“Jesus Christ, Shannon!”
“I’m here. I’m right here, Shan,” Joey continued as he rocked her back and forth in his arms like a mother would a small child.
I couldn’t tell which one of them was bleeding more.
I suspected Joey.
But Shannon? Shannon was just limp.
“Is she breathing?” I jumped into action, setting Sean down as I hurried over to them.
“I don’t know, I don’t know.” Joey choked out a cry, and it was the worst sound I had ever heard come from his mouth.
He sounded so young.
So frightened.
So utterly broken.
“Can you hear me?” he sobbed, holding her bloodied face between his hands. “I’m going to get you out of here, okay? Shannon, can you hear me? Shan? Come on, talk to me.”
“Get that away from her,” I warned Marie, roughly tossing the bag of peas away from her daughter’s small frame as I felt for a pulse. “You’ll send her body into shock!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” their mother cried. “I’m trying to help.”
“Okay.” I sagged in relief when I felt the faint thrum of Shannon’s pulse against my fingertips. “She has a heartbeat, but it’s faint.”
“I don’t know where the ambulance is,” Marie cried, dropping her head in her hands. “It should be here by now.”
“Stop crying and do something useful,” I ordered, battling down a surge of fury directed entirely toward her. Because this woman… Yeah, I couldn’t even go there with this woman. I would snap. “Just get out of the way, Marie. Go and hold Sean or get a blanket or something.”
Waiting until she had moved aside, I shifted closer to my boyfriend, who was still cradling his sister’s limp body in his arms.
“I’m going to get you help, okay?” Joey was whispering in Shannon’s ear as he pressed a kiss to her bloody forehead, smearing and mixing the blood on his face with hers. “Don’t leave me.”
She stared back at him with a blank, glazed-over look in her eyes, and the horrific gurgling noise that came from her throat, along with clumps of blood when she tried to answer him, were something that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.
“Aoife.” Sniffling, he pressed his cheek to his sister’s face and mumbled something incoherent to her before exhaling a ragged breath and kissing her cheek. “Give me your keys.” Sucking in a labored breath, he grunted out a pained snarl before hissing, “Fuck waiting for the ambulance. I’ll take her myself.”
