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“Fuck, we’ve gotta get him lifted ASAP. No waiting for the hospital. That bullet could’ve hit a major artery,” a voice hisses in the darkness. I think it’s Drake’s. “Use the chopper. Yeah, right there!”
The loud whirring woof-woof-woof from above increases as a helicopter bounces down on the highway, landing in the middle of the asphalt where trucks have blocked off both sides of the road, their lights pointing down the road like a makeshift emergency blockage.
Several guys hoist West up and rush him inside the helicopter.
Not about to let him out of my sight, I push through the small crowd and climb in beside him before anybody stops me.
“Please. I can’t leave him,” I plead as a pilot looks back.
He gives me a nod and a man in a police uniform shoves a set of earmuffs into my hands.
Even with them, the noise is ridiculous.
Crouching down, I help apply pressure to Weston’s thigh. Someone tied a leather belt around it—a makeshift tourniquet—and it’s already drenched in blood.
Time blurs as soon as we’re airborne.
I cry.
I pray.
I worry.
I keep my head pressed against his chest, counting every second with his heartbeat, begging it to hold steady with my cheek as the helicopter heads for what must be Dickinson.
Sweet Jesus, it hurts.
Even having my own life in peril less than an hour ago wasn’t this brutal.
He can’t die saving me. He lived through a fricking war.
I can’t let him go without an apology—without the life we’re meant for.
After what seems like an eternity, we touch the ground. Blue-dressed medics meet the helicopter on the rooftop and pull Weston onto a gurney.
“Stand back,” they tell me.
But I can’t.
I run to his other side, grasping his hand and speed walking with them to the imposing metal doors leading inside.
“Don’t let him die!” I shout at the medics.
“I’m not dying, Shelly,” he snarls weakly. “Don’t worry your pretty head. I’ll...I’ll be right...back...”
He drifts off, his eyes fluttering shut.
Terror grips me by the throat like a serpent.
He sounds so faint, so detached, so close to slipping away.
But it’s Weston, isn’t it?
I have to act tough. If only so he can have a crumb of my energy.
“You’d better not go anywhere, you big lunk!” I shout after him. “I’ll never forgive you if you do.”
Once I’m inside and wiping the sobbing mess off my face, a nurse tells me I can’t go further, but that I can give him a quick kiss. I do, trembling as I pray with my all that it won’t be my last.
