Machines are beeping and whooshing and making all these sounds that I’ve heard time and again, and somehow never get used to.
They rush her in, and I’m following as fast as I can because I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want her out of my sight unless I have to, and I do. They take her straight to theatre and that’s it.
I wait, and I wait. I wait alone and then with Francis. We just wait.
Chapter 36
Leo
Christopher walks into Cassie’s room and everything feels like it falls silent. He looks at his sister and then at me. We’re both wearing some white scrubs. He must’ve been covered in blood too. I haven’t seen him since we said goodbye and shook hands as we left the party.
It’s been a little over twelve hours since we last saw each other, but it feels like so much has happened, everything has changed.
Eyes red and swollen, he has the look of an empty man. A man who has lost everything.
I know that if I were in his shoes, pity would be the last thing I’d want or need, but I can’t help but give it to him.
Sitting in silence on the other side of Cassie’s bed, he holds his head in his hands. I’m not sure if there’s something, anything you can say to someone when something like this happens. So I sit in silence with him.
“How is she?” he asks after a while.
Devoid of anything other than exhaustion, Christopher’s voice is empty. He sounds how he looks, and I don’t think it fairly represents how he’s feeling.
“Okay.”
“Good.” He’s not sobbing but his reply sounds strangled and wet like one.
“Christopher…”
“I know,” he nods, biting down on his lip as he wipes his nose with the back of his hand. His eyes are so full of tears and sorrow that they’re bulging. They’re swollen with hatred and pain. So much loss. “Everyone’s sorry. I thought I was doing a good thing, making her happy. Bella was so fed up of being cooped up all the time.”
“She’s going to be okay.” It’s a lie. I’ve been good at telling myself a lot of those the last twelve hours.
I keep telling myself that same lie every second I’m sat here wai
ting for Cassie to open her eyes or just mumble. Rasp. Twitch.
“Is she?” he looks at his sister and wipes at his face again. “My wife is lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, probably dreaming about a baby she’s never going to meet. A Livia or a Florence. A little girl she’s never going to hold. I can think of a million things Arabella is going to be, and okay is not one of them.”
Squeezing Cassie’s hand, he gets up and I almost miss the wet tracks sluicing down his face.
I’ve never been this ashamed and disgusted with myself. With my name. My family.
He doesn’t look back as he heads for the door, but then neither would I. Weakness is something that we are engrained to hide.
“I am truly sorry.” I tell him.
He pauses for a moment and then says, “Don’t apologise for another man’s sins, it does nothing.” When he gets to the door he turns and there is only devastation. “I should have looked after them better.”
Christopher glances down at Cassie and then back at me. “You’re going to help me find them.”
I nod, because yeah, I am going to find them. I’m going to put a bullet in every single one of the bastards. Right where they shot my girl. And if he wants to cut them open, I’ll hand him the blade.
Jack, he was just a taster. A warning to them and bait to the bloodhound inside me.
I want retribution, and I will take it.
A bullet for a bullet. A wound for a wound.