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“I’m sorry,” I say, remorse filling me now that I’m safe. “I should never have done that. I was just trying to protect you guys.”
“You could have gotten killed,” Caleb says, eyes red-rimmed and voice hoarse. “How could you do that to us?”
“I needed to know the truth,” I say, clenching my jaw. “Rich was hiding something and I needed to find out what.”
“We know he killed Emily,” Bastian says, pain in his voice as he speaks. “Diego told us Rich paid the Serpents to cover it up.”
“It’s because she found out what was going on,” I tell them. “Emily looked into the same things I did and found out that the story about the center’s closure didn’t add up. She confronted him and he killed her. She was never having an affair with him, he used that as an excuse to hide his misdeeds.”
Caleb scrubs a hand over his face, looking so much older for a moment, a noise of anguish escaping him. “She never slept with him?”
“No,” I say, reaching out one hand to take his, squeezing it tightly. “She never betrayed you guys. Rich wanted you to think that so you wouldn’t discover that it was actually him who embezzled millions from the Haven Center, forcing it to close. He did it because the committee reviewing his research pulled his funding.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that to us,” Caleb says, sniffling. The weight of Dr. Thornton’s betrayal hangs heavy over us in the car, a reminder that no matter how well we think we know someone, we never really do.
I decide not to tell them what he told me about being a likely diagnosed psychopath. I can’t bring myself to ruin the only happy memories they have left with the awful truth. “He wanted you guys to stay a part of his life,” I say instead. “He thought that this was the way to do it.”
“I don’t know if that’s true, but thank you for saying so,” Bastian says, voice soft. We’re almost home now and Dominic is fading in and out of consciousness from the amount of blood loss. He lets out a moan and I pull off my cardigan, using it to wipe his brow.
“We’re nearly there,” I say, stroking his cheek. “Stay with us. What day is it?”
“The day you tell us you’re never leaving again,” Dominic mumbles.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I assure him. “Let’s just get you home and cleaned up first.”
Once we arrive back at the house, Bastian and Caleb support Dominic and I rush to the door to unlock it so they can carry him inside. They deposit him on the couch and Caleb runs to grab the first aid kit.
Standing over Dominic, I examine the bullet wound. It looks nasty, blood everywhere, his skin gaping open around the hole where the bullet entered. The scent of burned flesh is pungent. Bile rises in my throat as I realize that if it weren’t for my recklessness, he wouldn’t have been shot.
I swallow my nausea and start stripping Dominic’s clothes from his lower half, leaving him in his boxer briefs as I examine the wound. It’s deep but didn’t go all the way down to the bone and I breathe a sigh of relief, though it’s mixed with remorse for my impulsive actions.
“Get me like, all the sterile bandages you can find,” I tell Bastian, who is fidgeting as he watches us. “And Caleb, I need you to get me something for him to bite down on, a belt for thewound, and a knife. Sterilize it first. That bullet needs to come out as soon as possible.”
“Can you even do that?” Caleb demands, glancing back and forth between me and Dominic as he writhes in pain on the couch. “I thought it was bad to take the bullet out.”
“We can’t go to the hospital so we’re going to have to make do,” I say, impatience rising. “You guys may call mePrincess, but I grew up in a neighborhood just like this one.”
“I didn’t think you had experience removing bullets though,” Caleb mutters.
“Don’t question my knowledge,” I say, refusing to tell him I learned how to do this from watching medical TV shows.
Caleb rushes to follow my orders and gathers the supplies, leaving them within arm’s reach on the coffee table. The sky is nearly dark now, the sun casting long shadows through the slats in the blinds.
“Now go get towels. Lots of towels,” I say, voice firm. “Like, all the towels. He’s going to bleed everywhere.”
Bastian returns with a bag of sterile bandages and some needle-nose pliers. “I figured you’d need it,” he says gruffly, tossing them on top of the stack of supplies.
“Good thinking,” I say as I start cleaning the wound as best I can while Dominic moans and thrashes around. “Hold him down,” I add.
Bastian steps in, pinning his brother down by the shoulders from behind the couch as I continue cleaning the wound out with alcohol. The tang of iron in the air dissipates as I wipe the blood away.
Dominic is sweating and swearing now, but when Caleb comes back with a wooden spoon and shoves it between his teeth, he bites down on it and stops thrashing so much.
I take the belt, wrapping it tightly around his thigh and buckling it so it can stop the bleeding while I work on his lowerleg. Once I get the wound clean enough, I grab the knife Caleb brought, keeping my hands steady as I press it into the hole so I can gauge how deep the bullet is.
Caleb rushes to grab towels, bringing down a huge stack just as I hear the tinny cling of metal on metal. “Found it,” I say, gritting my teeth as I take the knife out of the wound. “I’m ready to take it out now.”
Dominic braces himself as I push the needle-nose pliers inside, gripping the bullet between the metal nose and slowly, carefully extracting it. The bullet comes out relatively easily and I plop it into the glass cup that Caleb brings over.
