Page 91 of Overkill

I used the Heimlich on her until she finally coughed water, but she wouldn’t open her eyes.

Her head lolled to the side. I pushed her hair from her face.

“Baby? Wake up for me, baby. Come on, darling.” I shook her, but she stayed limp.

Steam came from her nose, and I almost laughed in relief. “She’s breathing!”

“She’s been shot!” Griff reached for my belt, undoing it and slipping it off me.

Even that was a passive-aggressive fuck you from him. He could have used his own belt. But he was, even while he saved my life—and her life—a fucking asshole.

But I didn’t care.

If he saved her, then he’d be the best friend I ever had.

“Melody?” I shouted, shaking her as Griff started a tourniquet on her thigh.

“Yes? We need an ambulance to whatever piece-of-shit place we’re at!” Daria screamed into the phone. “Now! Now!”

Thunder clapped. Melody groaned as Griff cinched the tourniquet so tightly, it left a mark on her thigh. Then he tightened it one more time to compensate for her soaked jeans.

“Melody?” I said her name to wherever she was in her mind, fading and fading from me. “Melody? Melody!”

The world couldn’t take her from me.

Whatever gods there were, they couldn’t take her from me.

I’d just found her.

I held her to me, shielding her face from the rain with my body as lights, sirens, and engines rumbled. Guys in white paramedic gear tried to yank her from me, but I didn’t let go. They’d have to kill me to make me let her go.

But I let them take her while my hand stayed on her wrist, my fingers on her pulse, each little beat a reminder that she wasn’t gone. She wasn’t lost.

In the jostling ambulance, I held onto her, counting her heartbeats and breaths.

She was alive. And if she was alive, there remained a world of possibilities. One of those possibilities was Melody, healthy and bright with life, in my arms.

I prayed to every god and every deity.

I held her hand between mine, fingers pressed against my forehead as I pleaded with anything and anyone who would listen.

Save her. Protect her. Bring her back.

I promised everything to any being that might exist. I’d do anything for her to survive. To live. To pull through.

I’d rip out my own heart with my bare hands if any damn one of those sky gods made me an offer. I’d sign any dotted line, bargain with any devil.

Anything, as long as the melody continued.

As it turned out, when you were not actually married, they sicced security guards on you.

I was chased from her room, and when I lost my ever-living shit, Sheriff Whitlaw had to escort me out, threatening to put me in handcuffs. She advised me to go back to Melody’s house and take care of the terrified Miriam and Marcus.

I had no idea how to comfort kids. I’d never had to try. Other than Goose’s children, I’d never even been around them.

The storm was over, and the threat of flood was a suddenly distant memory as the blue sky peeked past the fading clouds, leaving only rainbows in the wake of its fucking devastation.

I drove the kids to the hospital at the start of visiting hours. After a few dirty looks from the security guards, I promised to stay quietly in the waiting area.