I cough, tears spilling from my eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” I whisper.
“Rocco,” Ricardo shouts. “Rocco, are you all right?”
“We weren’t supposed to kill him,” I keep repeating. The blood is draining from my leg.
Is this what it feels like to die? Hopeless and afraid?
It wasn’t supposed to end like this. We were supposed to take him in alive.
Instead, there’s enough blood surrounding me to fill a small pool.
I’m dying…
Everything fades to black.
Madison
Dasha runs me to the hospital.
No one tells us what happened. All we know is that he was dropped off in front of the building. I got the call that Byron has been killed, but the details are kept from us.
Finally, we track him down.
I’m not thinking straight. I have no idea how to even react. Is he in bad condition? Is he dying? I keep running the scenarios over and over in my head, and I can’t stop crying.
My chest feels like it’s caving in. This is all my fault…
When we get to the hospital, they won’t let us in the room. “Friends and family only,” a nurse tells me. “You’ll have to take a seat in the waiting room.”
“You don’t understand,” I tell them. “My boyfriend is back there.”
She bars me from entering. “Please, sit down. A doctor will update you when he’s ready.”
The look in the workers’ eyes tells me it’s not good. The ER is practically empty tonight, but everyone is concentrated to Rocco’s room.
A trail of drying blood leads inside.
“No…”
I shouldn’t have taken him for granted. People come and go. They’re not around forever. I should have realized it wasn’t all fun and games. Now, I’m planning for the worst outcome.
Dasha hands me a bag of tissues from her purse. “You need to calm yourself. You don’t know what’s going on. Don’t rush to conclusions.”
But her tears don’t make me feel any better.
“He’s dead, Dasha,” I cry. “Did you see the blood outside? How can anyone survive something like that?”
Her eyes fold with empathy and sadness, and she breathes heavily. For a second I wonder if she’s going to break down with me, but she holds strong in the end.
“We’re not specialists. I’m not going to make any diagnoses. We’re going to sit here and wait until the doctor comes out of this room and gives us a solid update.”
Kasha’s daughter, Holly, wraps her arms around me. “Don’t cry.”
She’s been so polite this whole time that I almost forgot she was here.
“Thank you,” I whisper. “You’re helping me a lot, you know that?”
She hugs me again.