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The little gray fox by the fireplace must’ve been hit by a stray bullet. It lies on its side, still attached to the little pedestal, staring up at the ceiling like it’s sniffing the air.
Forever frozen in time.
* * *
The police arrive with the paramedics, and as soon as they do, a new kind of chaos erupts. It’s the good kind, I know it is, but it’s hard for my brain to process that when I just want to shut out the whole world. Everything is too loud, moving too fast, and Chase and Dax are whisked away into an ambulance after the paramedics pry the rest of us away from them.
I watch them go with my heart in my throat, and the only comforting thought I have as they disappear from sight is that at least they’re together.
They have each other.
And Dax won’t let Chase die.
The police are moving around the space, cordoning off areas and placing markers near pieces of evidence. They question us briefly, and I’m a little afraid they’re going to make us tell them the whole story right now and that I definitely won’t be able to tell it without losing my shit completely.
But the paramedics take a look at me, shine a light in my eyes, and tell the officers who arrived on the scene that I need to go to the hospital too. River and Linc come with me, and as soon as the ambulance doors close behind us, exhaustion washes over me like a blanket of darkness.
We’re still quiet. None of us know what to say. There’s nothing to say until we know if Chase is okay. Grief sits in my chest like a gathering tidal wave, held back only by a thin barrier of hope.
A thought pricks at the back of my mind, and I pull my cell phone out of my pocket. There are fifteen texts from Hunter, the tone of each one growing increasingly frantic. I scroll down to the last three.
HUNTER: Please text me if you get this!!!
HUNTER: Are you okay??
HUNTER: If I don’t hear from you in ten minutes, I’m calling the cops. Fuck, I should have already, no matter what you said. Call me!!! Please!!
She sent that one eight minutes ago.
My fingers shake as I tap out a message, the paramedic moving around in the small space by my head and Linc and River sitting alongside me, hands resting on my hip and thigh.
Possessive.
Reassuring.
ME: I’m okay. I’m so fucking sorry, Hunter. I know I scared the shit out of you. I didn’t mean to.
HUNTER: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, LOW! What the fuck happened??? What’s going on??
My eyes are getting bleary. It’s hard to focus on the screen well enough to type out a message, but I blink a few times and try again.
ME: I’ll tell you everything. I promise.
And I mean it. I will.
Because I finally can.
26
“You fucking asshole.”
Those are the first words Dax says to Chase when his brother wakes up.
He was in surgery for several hours, and the doctor said he was incredibly lucky the bullet missed both his heart and his lung. He needed an immediate blood transfusion due to heavy blood loss, and Doctor Campbell said if the paramedics had arrived even a few minutes later, he might not have made it.
It’s hard to comprehend that. The difference a few minutes can make, how they can literally be the difference between life and death.
I try not to think about it too hard, actually, because it hurts my heart even to imagine it.
