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CHAPTER 39
Pure chaos had descendedon the banquet hall as people ran screaming and gunfire popped all around us. My eyes, however, were glued onto Adair who was standing in front of Madeline as red blossomed across his chest.
“Adair!” Rio roared over the screams, and he swooped in to catch the alpha as his knees buckled. My legs finally came unfrozen as I watched Rio cradle Adair. He pressed a hand over the other man’s bleeding chest and tried to stem the bleeding.
Madeline was still standing frozen, her eyes glazed over as she stared into the inky chaos of the crowd.
“Suspect down!” Someone shouted in the darkness, and I stepped in front of Madeline, trying to get her to look at me.
“Someone get to Carter! Carter’s been shot!” Another voice shouted.
“Love, are you okay?” I asked her and she blinked at me. Something was wrong, I could feel through our shared bond.
I glanced down at her blood covered front, thinking for a minute that it was from Adair, but the longer I stared at it, the more I realized that it was far too much blood to be only from Adair.
Madeline’s eyes fluttered, and I barely caught her as she went down. “Madeline, Love, I need you to look at me, Rio...” I looked up at my packmate and only saw wild panic in his dark eyes as he glanced at our two incapacitated family members.
“The bullet must’ve gone through Adair.” Rio’s words were practically whispered amongst the cacophony of noise around us, but I understood the gist of what he was saying.
I felt for the bullet hole, finding it in the center of her ribcage, and did my best to try and stanche the bleeding with my fingers. “Love, please stay with me.”
Madeline blinked, her dazed eyes clearing for a moment just enough to register the pain that she was in. Her brows drew together as she cried out in fear, looking down at her stomach to see if that was where the pain was coming from.
I could hear someone shouting that paramedics were nearly inside. “Madeline, help is almost here. Just keep looking at me, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”
Madeline wrapped her fingers around the sleeve of my jacket and gripped it with more force than I thought possible for someone who was bleeding as profusely as she was. “Marcus, listen to me.”
I brought my face close to hers and she fixed her pain-riddled brown eyes onto me. “You have to tell them to save the baby first.”
I reeled back as if she’d struck me, and immediately shook my head. “It won’t come to that, Love, they are going to take care of you.”
“Doesn’t matter. If it comes down to it, save the baby.” Madeline cupped my face with a bloody hand. “You have to promise me, Marcus.”
“I can’t...” My throat tightened with panic at the idea of having to make that decision. “You can’t ask that of me.”
“It has to be you, Rio and Adair are too soft to follow my decision. If things...” Madeline gritted her teeth, her grip on my shirt starting to loosen. “If things go bad...in my purse...baby name....” Then Madeline went completely limp in my arms.
“Move out of the way.” An unfamiliar voice said and I turned to growl savagely, afraid that someone was trying to hurt Madeline, but when I saw that several paramedics were approaching us I begrudgingly let them take over.
“This is Madeline Zhao, she’s twenty-five years old and 35 weeks pregnant.” I began to robotically rattle off her information as they prepped her to go in the ambulance. A few feet away, Rio was doing the same for Adair.
“Are you her husband?” The paramedic asked as he placed a mask over Madeline’s face.
“Pack member, she’s our beta.”
“Then you’ll ride with us, your other packmate will ride with the other ambulance. Let’s move.” The paramedic ordered and I followed them out to the ambulance, covered in the blood of the love of my life.
“Female, 25, 35 weekspregnant.” The paramedic repeated all of the information to the doctors who met us in the ambulance bay. I did my best to keep up with them, not wanting to lose sight of Madeline who still hadn’t regained consciousness. Behind us, Rio was jogging alongside Adair’s stretcher.
“Are you the father?” The doctor asked as they began to cut Madeline’s gown away from her body, still moving towards what I assumed was an operating room.
“One of them.” I said, glancing back at Adair and Rio.
“I would normally wait to ask this, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to have the time to wait.” The doctor stopped me in the hall as the rest of the team wheeled Madeline out of my line of sight. I wanted nothing more than to follow her, but the reality that there was nothing I could do for her at this point was settling heavily into my body.
The doctor waited for the other medical team to wheel Adair out of sight and for Rio to join before he continued. “We need to know, if it comes down to it, do you want us to save the mother or the baby?”
Rio made a gurgling noise, and I slipped my hand into his and squeezed it hard. “Please save the baby.”
