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She protected my boy… she protected my little boy with her own body. I look at my son, who’s now standing next to me. “It will be okay, Leo, it will be okay.” Tears streak his cheeks as his little hands cling onto Sebastian white-knuckled, trying to remain strong. The words I say I drill into my own mind as well as I look back at Annie whose skin is even more pale than usual.
“She is losing too much blood,” I grit out to Sebastian, before I realize that the gunfire has stopped, and the room is full of activity as our doctors rush in.
“She needs a hospital,” our doctors order, already scurrying about, getting bandages out of their kits and applying pressure onto the wound.
“It's a gunshot. Can’t you treat her here?” Sebastian asks quickly.
“She is losing too much blood. She needs to go now,” they reply as they work around me, checking her vitals and trying to stem the flow of blood, even though my hands are still firmly on her chest.
“Ambulance is on its way,” Carter announces as he comes up to us, phone still in his hand. Sebastian nods, not happy that our mess will be now made public but understanding that we need to do what is right.
I haven’t moved from my position. My hands, now tainted red, remain on Little Red’s body as the doctors continue to administer medication and take her vitals. He face is growing paler, with little splatters of red like freckles across her cheeks, and I wipe them away with my thumb.
“Fuck, Annie, hang on. Please just fucking hang on,” I beg her, and I hear Leo whimpering beside me. He has seen so much, this little boy of mine, and the guilt I carry for his life being exposed to this shit builds inside of me daily. He has seen more in his young lifetime than many see in decades. How he will get over this, I have no idea.
For his own mother to walk in and fire her gun at a woman who was protecting her own son… my brain is incapable of understanding any of it right now as I continue to beg Annie to stay with us.
Annie’s body starts to convulse as she coughs a little before her eyes open into small slits.
“Dante?” she whispers out.
“I’m here, Little Red. Don't worry, you’re going to be okay. Everything will be okay,” I say as I kiss her forehead, my voice falling onto her skin as I try to believe it myself.
“Leo?” she asks about my son, even now as her body lays broken, and he rushes to her, burying his head into her shoulder.
“Annie?” Leo says again, sobbing into her shoulder, asking her in his own way if she is okay.
“It’s okay, Leo,” she whispers to him. “It is all okay.” She’s giving him the support he needs, her continued thoughts of others during this time astounding me.
“Ambulance is here, Dante. You need to move to the side,” the doctor says to me as paramedics fill the room with their stretcher. But I don’t want to move. I am too scared to move my hands for fear she will leave me.
“Dante! Move!” Sebastian yells at me, trying to shock me from my haze, and it works. I lean back and remove my hands, looking at Little Red as her eyes close again the minute my hands leave her body. A small smile stays on her lips as she falls unconscious from the blood loss.
“Red?” I say to her, already knowing that she is out but hoping that she comes back to me. I stand back as the medics take care of her, feeling useless and extreme shame and responsibility that this happened to her, in my house, by the hand of my ex-wife.
I notice Sebastian on his phone, no doubt already talking with the police chief to keep this off the record. Carter and our men form a barricade around the three other bodies on my living room floor, ensuring that no one sees them there. The less they know, the better for everyone.
Little Red is picked up and wheeled out of the room. I follow along with her as they wheel her out of the house and down the hallways to the outside. Carter and Sebastian grab Leo and follow me, leading him out of the house, ensuring he doesn’t see the mess that we made, shielding his eyes from his mother as she lies dead.
Outside, in the bright light of the day, I grip onto her hand before I need to let go, so they can put her in the back.
As they do, I lean down to Leo. “It will be okay, Leo. Stay here with Sebastian. I am going with Annie to help her at the hospital. She will be okay,” I say, before kissing his head and rushing to jump in the back of the ambulance with Annie. Sitting next to her and gripping her hand in mine once more.
31
Annie
The constant beeping in my ear rouses me as I stretch out my legs and roll my head away from the bright light. Slowly opening my eyes, I groan as I wake and feel slight pain in my shoulder. I am in a room that is not familiar, and as my eyes begin to focus, the beeping noise gets a little faster.
My eyes search the room as I try to get my bearings. I have no idea where I am, and I look for clues as I observe the white walls, bright lights, and scratchy linen underneath me. Taking a breath in, I get the whiff of strong disinfectant that travels up my nostrils, burning the hairs slightly, and I swallow hard, trying to encourage moisture to my dry throat.
“Red?” his voice echoes around the empty room, and I immediately feel safe.
“Dante?” I say, as I try to turn my head to meet his voice, but it comes out scratchy and hoarse from lack of use.
“Here,” he says gruffly, his tone not warm and inviting as it usually is, and I spot him leaning farther away against a wall. I watch him walk across the room and pour me a glass of water from a jug that is sitting on a small table nearby, before walking it over to me. His eyes are steely as they look at me, his face set.
“What happened?” I ask him, my brain slowly waking as I try to sit up and take the water from him.
