A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“Dean. Oh, Dean, are you all right?” Anna hovered beside him, wringing her pale hands. “Can you move?”

He groaned and shifted, the movement sending bursts of pain from his shoulder to the back of his head. “No,” he gasped. “It’s too heavy.”

He tried to see what was holding him down, but he couldn’t turn his head that far. Whatever it was, it felt as though it weighed a ton.

His right arm was numb, and he couldn’t move his fingers. Something warm and wet trickled beneath his torn sweatshirt and dripped onto the boards beneath him.

“Anna,” he muttered, his vision blurring. “Help me.”

“I can’t,” she said, her voice sounding like a sob. “I tried to move it, but I can’t.”

His mind was spinning now, the pain from his arm and shoulder almost overwhelming. It took all his strength to form words. “Can you—can you bring someone to me?”

“I’ll try,” she promised. “Oh, Dean, I’m so sorry.”

He rested his forehead on the floor, oblivious now to the dirt and the roughness of the wood. “Get—help,” he muttered. And then he closed his eyes and allowed the darkness to engulf him.

HE DIDN’T KNOW how much time passed before his aunt came to him. As he drifted in a haze of pain and confusion, it could have been minutes or hours for all he knew.

“Dean! Oh, my God, what happened to you?” Mae knelt beside him, her hands on his face, at his throat. “Dear, can you talk to me?”

He moaned. “I can’t—get up,” he managed to say.

Mae ran to the door of the shed. “Cara,” she called loudly. “Call 911. And then come out here and help me. Hurry! Dean’s hurt!”

Relieved that help had arrived, Dean tried to fight the darkness that threatened to take him again. He wanted to stay conscious, wanted to know just how badly he was hurt.

He groaned when his aunt cautiously shifted the object lying across him. Every movement made his right arm and shoulder throb as though someone were kicking him.

“I’m sorry, dear. Maybe Cara and I can lift it quickly without hurting you too much.”

“Be careful,” Dean muttered. “It’s—heavy.”

“I know. But I think the two of us can manage it.”

“What—what is it?”

“I don’t know. It looks like an old table. A potting bench, maybe. The top is wood, but the frame is metal. Oh, Dean, you’re bleeding. You have a bad cut on your right arm, all the way up to your shoulder.”

He’d already guessed that. He hoped nothing was broken, nothing vital severed.

He could only imagine what shape he would be in if the bench had hit his head. If Anna hadn’t—

He tried to lift his head. He didn’t see Anna anywhere. “Aunt Mae ... how did you—”

“Don’t talk, Dean. You need to conserve your strength.” it

He stubbornly persisted. “How did you know I was in trouble?”

She looked perplexed for a moment. “I don’t know, exactly. I was working m the lobby, and suddenly I had a very strong, almost panicky feeling that I should check on you. I’m just glad I paid attention to my feelings ... Oh, Cara, there you are. Let’s try to get this off of him, shall we?”

Cara was already kneeling at Dean’s other side. “Should we try to move it? We could injure him more seriously. Help is on the way.”

“Get it off, if you can,” Dean muttered. “It’s too damned heavy. I can hardly breathe.” He was starting to feel distinctly claustrophobic.

Though Cara still seemed inclined to believe it would be better to wait, she allowed herself to be persuaded. She and Mae took hold of opposite sides of the bench, counted to three and then shifted it off Dean’s back in one smooth, forceful effort. They dropped the bench at Dean’s left side, then shoved it to one corner of the cramped shed and out of the way.

Dean’s relief at having the weight removed was overwhelmed by a fresh wave of pain that crashed through him. He finally surrendered to it, and to the oblivion that followed. His last clear thought was of Anna, and of the fear and hopelessness in her eyes when she’d knelt beside him.