“Like I would want you after this. Dirty Cunt.” He bites her, hard, on her shoulder causing her to cry out.
I lose all semblance of control and step forward.
“I’m going to kill you, you fucking coward. Hiding behind a woman.” Knife out, I move toward him and Duke places a restraining arm around my middle.
“Just a pretty little piece of ass. A little fat for my taste.” He pinches her stomach, hard, and a pained whimper escapes her lips.
“Let her go.” The fury in Duke’s voice even makes me step back. He’s shaking, like a man holding a monster under his skin. “Now.”
“I will, I will. Let’s see if she can still keep you warm.” And he slowly, so slow, slides the blade he has pressed to her side through her ribs. Her eyes widen as he pushes. Time seems to stop as he continues his slow push until the long blade has disappeared into her side completely. I hear boots stomping across the floor. He flings her limp body at me, and I catch her, sinking to the ground as I hear a single shot ring out in the small closet.
“No!” I scream as I crumble to the floor, the woman I love cradled in my arms. I feel Duke collapse next to me. “Baby, Hurricane? Callie, please!” I crush her body to me, so warm, so soft. I sob into her chest, the knife protruding from her side glaring at me, angry I didn’t do enough to save her. Blaming me.
“Caroline, please wake up baby girl, please.” I hear Duke, Isee his blood-soaked hands feeling for a pulse, terror in his eyes. “Baby, please.” His voice cracks as he pleads with her prone body, running his hands over her neck, her face.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and look up into the eyes of a paramedic. I know him. My brain won’t tell me who he is though. I’m cold. My body shakes. My teeth are chattering.
“Cash, let me see her. Come on.”
I sob as I hug her body to me, feeling her blood soaking through my clothes, the puddle expanding on the floor around us.
“Cash, let her go,” Duke tells me, trying to move my fingers where I grip her. I look at him, my eyes wide. He looks shell-shocked, his face a mirror of my own. I release her and the paramedics lift her gently from my lap.
“Please be careful with her. Please,” I whisper through tears as pain rips through my chest. I lay back on the carpet as they take her away. I roll my head to the side and see police have filled her room, one leaning over Roger, checking his pulse, as blood flows out of a single shot, in the center of his chest.
Sitting up, my head swims, my sight blurs, and I fall back to the carpet, everything going black.
Chapter 32
Don’t Take the Girl
Duke
Watching Caroline fall to the floor, Cash wrapped around her body, I feel like the heart in my chest stops beating. Aiming my gun, I squeeze the trigger. I’ve never even pointed a weapon at another person. Until this very second, I wasn’t even sure I would be able to pull the trigger if I needed to. The anger in my chest is visceral; it’s a physical presence filling me. I don’t stop to consider what I’ve done as Roger falls, lying in the corner of the closet, blood flowing freely from a single hole in his chest. The terrified scream that erupts from Cash drags me to my knees.
“Caroline, please wake up baby girl, please,” I beg. I check her pulse, weak, barely beating. I watch the blood seep from around the knife sticking out of her. “Baby, please.” I hear the paramedics. My hands can’t find purchase on her, slipping every time I try to grab her.
Please. God, please.
Cash holds on to her like a drowning man, the pain pouringoff him in waves as he begs her to wake up. Touching her hair, her face, her chest. She doesn’t breathe. She doesn’t move. He holds her close as the paramedics try to get to her.
Mickey, a man I’ve known most of his life, kneels next to Cash and lays a hand on his shoulder, trying to get to Caroline.
“Cash, let her go,” I tell him forcefully, trying to remove his hands from her. My hands are coated in her blood and I’m smearing it across her body and Cash’s. He finally releases her, and they pick her up, careful not to jostle her too much, protecting the knife that now acts as a dam for the blood trying to flow out of her.
“Please, be careful with her. Please,” Cash whispers as they strap her to their stretcher, stabilizing her, taking her pulse, inserting a needle into her. Blood is dripping from her onto the floor. There’s more blood outside of her than in, I think. Cash sits up, looking around before his eyes roll back and he collapses.
I fall on top of him. “Cash, Cash, come on buddy. Cash, don’t do this.”
An officer kneels next to me. “He’s okay, just in shock. Give him a minute.”
I sit back, pulling my knees to my chest and laying my head on them.
They are taking the woman I love down the stairs, strapped to a stretcher, her life leaving a red trail on the floor as they go. My best friend is unconscious on the ground. A man is dead beside me.
I don’t even know how to think around the enormity of the situation.
“Duke, we have to get a statement from you, and from Cash, when he comes to,” the officer, Billy, tells me.
