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“No, please. Tell me,” I begged, starting to feel desperate from the lack of updates. I needed to know how Tanner and Frankie were before I thought about myself.
“Frankie’s in surgery. The bullet hit her ribs. She lost a lot of blood and it’s going to hurt like hell when she wakes up, but it could have been so much worse.”
“Thank God,” I whispered. “Is someone with her?”
“Matt. He’s more shook up than we are. I think there’s a story there for us to unpick with your witchy ways when this is all over.”
I tried to laugh, but the dried blood covering me made my face feel like stone. The hole in my heart from worrying about Tanner didn’t help, either.
“And Tan?”
“Emmy, they’re doing tests. He’s had another two fits. The last one was a big one. I don’t know what to tell you. He drank. I don’t know why.”
“She did this to him, Addi. She must have. He wouldn’t have just caved after all this time.”
“Let’s wait for the tests to come back and then we can work out what he needs, but for now, you need a shower, lovely. I can’t look at you like this. Covered in Rylee. It’s breaking my heart. How did I not know she was his sister? How did that get past me? I really am the worst manager. I think this is me done. I can’t cope,” she sobbed, and I wrapped my pinky finger in hers.
“You made me a pinky promise. There’s no quitting, just like I won’t run. We can be there for each other. Let me go shower and then we will get some answers. Here, can you hold this so I don’t lose it? I’ve been wearing it on my thumb, but it’s still too big.” I pushed the angel-winged ring Tanner had given me on stage into her hand and fought back the tears.
“I’ve got it, Em. I’ll keep it safe… I’ll keep him safe until you come back.”
“Tanner had drugs and alcohol in his tox screen. Probably the equivalent of five or six drinks and then six different types of drugs. It doesn’t make any sense. Usually, when someone uses, they choose one drug and let it do its work before they take more or move on to something different. Your timeline tells us that he was only in that room for fifteen minutes and yet he had six of them in his system.”
Mav stood, bracing his hands on his hips. “I refuse to believe Tan decided to do all of that while Frankie was bleeding out. Even in his darkest, most fucked up moments, Tanner would have done anything… given his life, to protect Frankie.”
A memory smashed into me like a sledgehammer. My hand moved to my chest to try to ease the pain I felt from the realization of what he had done for us. “What if that’s exactly what he was doing?” I let out as I exhaled. “When I was listening outside, Rylee said something about two more drinks to save more people. And she asked whether risking himselffor themwas worth it. Do you think he did it for us? Was she threatening us? It makes sense if she’d already shot Rob and Frankie. He’d do anything to protect us. Including poison himself, so she’d leave us alone. Before she… did what she did, she was screaming about how we all still loved him, no matter what he did. Maybe this was her last-ditch attempt to break us all. To take his sobriety and give him a cocktail of drugs that could kill him.”
Addi let out a groan, walking over to Tanner, running her fingers through his long fringe. “What did you do for us, Tan? What did you do?”
Tanner
IdreamedEmmycameand rescued me. Fought for me, even though there was a gun pointing at her. She told me I was worth coming back for. In all our time together, that was probably the single most powerful sentence she’d ever said to me, other than that she loved me, which was probably why I was dreaming about it while I was dying. Because right now, I was dying. I had to be. My heart raced, and my skin was clammy. I felt sick and my head banged so hard I wondered if it might explode.
And then I felt it. A thumb dusting across my knuckles, a kiss on my temple, voices around me, talking. I tried to make sense of them, but I felt like I was watching things from underwater. Nothing made sense. People were above me, but I was too deep and I couldn’t find a way back to the surface.
I felt her tears, sobs wracking her body as her warmth spread through me.
“Tan, please don’t leave me. Don’t die. I can’t lose you. It would break me.”
“Not going anywhere, angel.” I forced the words out of my mouth, even though my body didn’t feel like my own.
She screamed. Loudly.
“Tanner. Oh my God. Let me get the doctor.”
“Stay, please.” I tried to hide the fear in my voice, but I was too exhausted to do it well, so it was clear for her to hear.
“Okay, I’ll press the buzzer and get the nurses to call him. Shit, Tanner, I’m so happy you’re awake. I thought she’d…”
“Fuck, Frankie… Frankie?” The memory of Frankie being shot filled my mind. The blood pooling under her, watching it spread across the floor while Rylee had forced me to drink those shots. I tried to sit up, but my body screamed at me.
“Stay there, Tan. Don’t move. Please. She’s okay. Rylee shot her in the chest, but it bounced off her ribs. She’s like superwoman or some shit.” Until now, I’d felt like I had bands strapped around my chest that restricted my breathing. I didn’t know why until this moment, but now I remembered it all and Emmy’s words helped me release some of the tension, making my chest expand slightly as I found out Frankie was okay.
“And everyone else? Twins? Lori, Phil, Addi?”
“All good. All safe.” More of the bands released themselves, tension slipping from my body, and my heart rate slowing.
“Rylee?”
