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I pretend my hands won’t swipe my screen because they’re shaking so badly. “I can’t, can you just …”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, give me it.”
He bends to take my phone from where I kneel on the floor, and I do the only thing I can think of. I headbutt him. It’s the only strike I have from this angle, and he’s close enough when bending to see my phone screen that I can knock him off balance.
As soon as I do, Nikolai falls to his back, muttering obscenities, and my head swims with the blow I just willingly dealt it. But I have to concentrate through the pain, trying to crawl to Patrick with the mere seconds I have before Nikolai regains his composure.
“You bitch!” he yells, and a bullet fires.
I drop to my stomach, inching toward Patrick as I hear the gun cock again. This is it, I think as I near the man who I want to spend the rest of time with but fear I won’t have that chance. Sadness so potent injects into my heart, tears welling in my eyes. I envisioned loving Patrick for such a long time. Growing old with him, getting married, raising babies. He won’t even know about all of it. If he’d just wake up, I’d tell him in a rush before we had no more time.
As I reach Patrick, my body covering his, I feel it.
The gun in the back of his waistband.
“Stupid little bitch, always ruining what I’ve got coming for me. Your family is a stain on this fucking town. Every fucking—”
I don’t hesitate. As swiftly as I can, I pull the gun from behind Patrick’s back, brandishing it and hoping like hell the training I did on my last movie was accurate. My finger finds the trigger just as Nikolai pulls to his feet and staggers over, his gun aiming toward me.
That’s when I press the trigger, training every ounce of sanity on this one action. The bullet releases, the sound ringing in my ears as I hold steady to the handle. In the split second, before it makes contact, Nikolai looks straight into my eyes, shock and evil mixing for a vicious combination.
And then it hits him, goes right into his stomach, the weight of it slamming into him and me alike.
Nikolai goes down, the sound of the shot deafening me as the recoil pushes me back, my shoulder blade making contact with the floorboards. I’ve shot guns in some of my movies, but never real, loaded ones. It hurts, the stun of it stupefying me for moments as I sit motionless. A gurgling sound comes from the man I just shot, blood pooling beneath him.
A life. I just … he had alife. The world seems to turn upside down, nothing making sense, and I’m only anchored when I turn to Patrick, who still lies unconscious. I hug him to me, rocking him, trying to get him to open his eyes.
“Cassandra?” Alana stands in the doorway as I turn, my mind almost playing tricks on me, a cell phone in her hand.
I sob harder, unable to get anything out, cradling Patrick’s head in my hands.
“I heard gunshots. I was at my parent’s picking something up …” She trails off as her eyes land on Nikolai’s lifeless body.
Her face goes white, but all I can do is squeeze Patrick’s hand, trying like hell to will him back to me.
“I love you, I love you,” I repeat over and over as I press my lips to his temple.
I only register Alana talking again when I hear, “We need an ambulance to the Mauer property.”
31
PATRICK
The mumble of the doctors talking to my parents hurts my head, even if they are on the other side of the door.
Although, everything since I’ve come to seems to make my skull pound and pierce with pain.
I’ve been confused and disoriented for the last hour or so, and no one will give me a real answer or explanation aside from telling me to rest as they ran tests and drew my blood. Mom let me know that Cassandra is here in the hospital as well, but won’t tell me anything as my medical team focuses on me.
The door opens, and in come my parents with a guy in a white lab coat. I rest against the pillows, the IV in my arm killing me as the drugs they’ve supposedly given me don’t do much to numb the throb at my temples.
“Patrick, good to see you awake. How is your pain level?” the doctor asks.
“I’m fine. Where is Cassandra? What happened? If you could just tell me what happened.”
The last thing I knew, I was walking into the Mauer house with Cassandra at my back. The next, lights out. Nothing. I woke up here, confused as all fuck, and without the woman I love.
“Patrick, you’ve suffered a mild fracture of your skull due to a blow to the head. You also have a severe concussion, so we’ll be admitting you for the next forty-eight hours to monitor you. With rest and time, the fracture should heal on its own, but from what I’ve been told, you’re lucky to be alive. We have you on some medication for the pain and will continue to monitor to make sure no other symptoms arise.” The doctor spells out my treatment, but that’s not what I asked for.
