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“You okay?” I asked as I listened to Adam question Amelia behind me.
“Yeah.” Her breath hitched. “Just hurts.”
“You need a more comfortable position?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I need to sit up a little bit, I think.”
Grabbing her around the waist, my fingers spanning both sides of her hips so totally well that ideas started to spread through my mind rapid-fire, I helped scoot her up in the bed.
Then went even further to sit her bed up.
Her face released of pain, then she saw her dad standing by the door, eyes on something outside.
“What is it?” she asked me.
“Active shooter,” I answered. “Now, sit here, don’t talk. Don’t even breathe. Don’t move. Do you understand?”
I could tell that she had about fifty thousand questions she wanted to spew out, but she held each one in and nodded.
I reached for the blanket that was on the end of the bed and covered her feet up better.
She tossed me a wobbly smile, then I ordered the women into the bathroom.
“Even you, darlin’,” I snapped at Amelia, who was hanging on to Adam.
“Who are… Laric?”
I nodded once. “Me. Go.”
She frowned but chose to go when her husband all but pushed her into the bathroom with Harlow and Winter who were already there. I forced Al to take his place inside with them as well, closing the door on their faces.
I then walked over and turned off the lights to the room entirely.
Plunged into pitch blackness, the only thing we could hear was each other’s breathing.
“Do you think it’s him?” Jack asked.
“No.” I paused. “I think if it was him, that he would be on this floor, and he would’ve made it all the way in here before any one of us would’ve been the wiser.”
“So you think that my sister is just that unlucky?” Adam asked.
“I think that it was just the wrong place at the right time, yes,” I agreed.
The blaring alarm continued to go off, but just as suddenly as it started, it ended.
“Code black discontinued.”
I blew out a sigh of relief and flipped the lights back on.
My eyes went to the bed to see Catori crying buckets of tears.
Silently.
If I’d never see that again, it would be way too fuckin’ soon.
I immediately walked over to her bed just as Jack turned from the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It h-hurts,” she hiccupped between breaths. “Really bad.”
I tried to press the button again, but it’d been less than fifteen minutes since I’d pressed it last, and it wouldn’t allow me.
“Line’s kinked,” she whispered, pointing down.
I looked down to see the line wedged between the wall and the plastic handrail of her bed.
I pulled the bed, then unkinked the plastic tubing, then hoped that it would help.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“There was a shooter in the emergency room.” Adam came back in speaking just as the ladies came out of the bathroom. “A shooting between faction gangs. Two nurses were hit but they’re okay. Both shooters were taken into custody.”
Jack breathed out a sigh of relief. Winter was at her daughter’s side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”
“Her tubing was kinked between the bed and the wall,” I explained her tears. “I unkinked it, but it might take a while to work again.”
“I want to go home,” she groaned. “I hate hospitals.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, allowing no room for argument. “You’re here to make sure you don’t stroke out or have anything super bad happen to you in the interim. Deal.”
Catori’s eyes shot fire, and I could tell that she didn’t like my answer.
“Whatever,” she grumbled, turning to her mother. “Mom, can you pack me a bag? I’m assuming that I can’t do it myself when I finally get out of here.”
“Not without me,” Jack interrupted. “I think that Thor the Twat would use any leverage he could get to get him out of the bind he’s worked his way into.”
Catori grimaced. “I was thinking you’d go with her. But sorry, I just don’t trust you to pick out my clothes. You lost my trust in the ninth grade when you sent me to school wearing a wind suit and Doc Martens.”
The family burst out laughing, all but Amelia and me.
“I have a feeling I’m missing something,” Amelia said.
“Picture day,” Harlow wheezed. “We were supposed to wear nice clothes that day, but something happened on the way to school and Jack and Catori had to stop on the side of the road and help some people out. Jack stopped at the store on the way to school after they were done and came back out with a wind suit. It was quite dapper.”
“Shut up,” Catori groaned. “Everybody and their brother looked at me like I was a complete loser that year. I got plastered all over the yearbook that day, too. It was so embarrassing.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and reluctantly I pulled my gaze away from Catori’s beautiful face, a face that I couldn’t stop looking at, and checked my phone.
