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Shade
THE HORROR SURROUNDING USwas like it came right out of an action film. Gunshots had fired, Tanner’s men blew up the damn parking lot. But of course, Tanner had been nowhere to be found. I wasn’t sure if he set this up. If he had, that meant war and a war was what he was going to get.
While Meadow had gone to give Tanner the ring, Sunny and I stayed back. When he got what he wanted, he went into the café and that was when the gunshots started.
It had happened so damn fast. At one moment, Sunny and Meadow were coming toward me and the next, they were on the ground.
Sirens sounded, police cars barreling down the road as the red and blue lights flashed. They indicated their arrival and while I would have breathed a sigh of relief at seeing them, I was focused solely on the bundled heap laying on the ground by Sunny’s SUV.
As quickly as I wanted to go to them, my feet were stuck. It was as if I were in quicksand and couldn’t move. Time seemed to stand still the longer I stared.
Voices shouted, someone grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
A cop. A cop was shouting in my face.
Why couldn’t I hear him?
He released me and disappeared into the mess spread out around us.
Sunny. Meadow.
My feet finally moved.
One step. Two. Three.
Several more before I reached the pile.
“Shade.” Meadow. She sounded so far away. Her voice was small. Helpless. Blood splattered her face and the pieces of clothing I could see. “Please. Sunny.”
That snapped me out of it. When I reached them, I fell to my knees, shoving Sunny back a few inches so Meadow could move out from beneath him. When his eyes didn’t open, I knew. When he didn’t demand for answers with that gravelly voice of his, I knew. When he didn’t tell me that he loved me and that everything would be fine, fuck, I knew. But I still needed to hear the words.
“Meadow,” I croaked, pushing Sunny off of her completely and gently turning him onto his back. When I pressed two fingers to his pulse point at the side of his neck and felt nothing, a muffled sob left me.
Through blurred vision, I tilted his head back and started giving him CPR. I would do anything to give my life for him. To breathe into his lungs and make his heart beat again.
I placed two fingers at his sternum, then put the heel of my other hand next to them and started chest compressions. “Please, Sunny. Wake the fuck up. You need to wake up. I need you.”
“Shade,” came Meadow’s muffled sob.
“Please.” Tears rolled down my cheeks, dripping off my chin and onto his leather cut.
“Shade.” Meadow hiccupped. She placed her hands on top of mine. “He’s gone.”
“No,” I shouted. “He can’t die on me.” Not when we were finally getting somewhere. After being together for fifteen years, we were finally starting to feel like a normal couple. “No. Sunny.” I stopped the compressions and beat my fists against his chest instead. But it did nothing. Sunny laid there, still and unmoving, and Meadow cried.
She threw her arms around my neck, muttering over and over how sorry she was but it did nothing to curb this ache. This agony that threatened to consume me completely.
“Say it,” I demanded, holding her against me.
She shook against me.
“Say. It,” I repeated.
Meadow lifted her head, staring at me. “He’s…he’s dead.”
Screams shattered from my lips, tearing my throat to shreds. It was like death himself had ripped my heart from my chest only to crush it in his very hands all the while laughing in my face.
“Sunny Harrison.”
