Just as I was pulling my phone out to confirm I was on my way, a text message came through that dropped me literally to my knees.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, looking at the sight of my future lying on the ground, her lifeblood spread all around her.
“No, no, no, no, no…” I repeated over and over, my eyes not conveying to my brain to get the lead out and get to her.
Michael, who was down on one knee beside me now, snatched the phone from my hand and looked at it, studying it quickly.
Pulling his own phone out, he dialed, and then barked into the receiver. “We need to trace a photo that just came to Bennett’s phone. Lennox has been shot.”
I took the phone back away from him and pressed the green phone button that would connect me automatically to the sender of the text message.
It rang three times before Corrinne answered, turning my blood to ice.
“You think that I would just take it lying down? You’ve got another think coming,” she laughed.
My eyes squeezed tightly shut. “Where are you?”
“Oh,” she sneered. “You haven’t gotten the call out yet? Give it a moment and I’m sure you’ll get it.”
With that she hung up, and I was running to my truck.
“The callout,” I said when Michael caught up to me and hopped into the passenger seat. “It’s for Lennox.”
Ten minutes later found me in a standoff with my boss.
“Bennett, I don’t give a fuck if you think you can handle it or not,” Luke growled into my face. “You’re. Not. Fucking. Coming.”
I shoved him. “Like hell I’m not. I’ll be coming whether you fucking want me to or not.”
“Lock him up,” Luke barked to the man at my side.
I turned to study Nico and shook my head.
“Goddammit,” I growled in frustration, sitting down on the nearest chair. “Just fucking go. And don’t let her die. Please, don’t let her die.”
My eyes conveyed every emotion I was feeling right then, and Luke flinched back at the sight.
“I won’t let anything more happen to her,” he lied.
We both knew it was a lie, but it was a lie we let happen because we both needed to think the best. To hope for the best.
When they left, I made it all of fifteen minutes before I walked out of the office, not sparing a single cop a look. Knowing if I had, they’d somehow try to stop me.
But there was no way I was leaving her there alone and hurt. I may not be in on the call, but I’d be there. Waiting.
I drove to the new place where Lennox was staying, which surprisingly was only minutes away from my place. And somewhere I ran past on a daily basis.
The duplex that she was staying in was easy to figure out by the people that were surrounding it.
Stomach doing summersaults the closer I got to her, I parallel parked behind a blue and white and in front of a white sedan, and started walking to the command tent I saw erected, with Downy at the helm.
Downy was a good talker, so it came as no surprise when Luke had sent him to school to become the team’s hostage negotiator.
He was damn good at what he did, and I was happy to have him where he was at that moment in time.
Downy clocked me almost immediately, and just shook his head, not surprised in the least that I was there.
He pointed to a chair, and I sat, my elbows on my knees.
“This is Officer Downy with the Kilgore Police Department. I’m a negotiator here to…yes ma’am. No ma’am,” Downy said, all the while watching the first floor window where I could see the curtains twitch as if someone was there, watching the festivities.
Then Downy barked, “Fuck!”
I blinked and turned to him, half standing.
“Sit!” He growled.
I sat.
“What is it?” I asked.
He ignored me and got on his mic.
“She doesn’t want to talk to anyone but Bennett, or she says she’ll shoot Lennox again,” Downy relayed.
I leaned over taking in deep gulps of air.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “Please.”
I prayed.
I could do nothing less.
Then I heard a gunshot, and my stomach plummeted.
Followed by another, and another.
The phone rang and Downy answered it.
“Give him the phone!” A woman roared.
Downy handed me the phone, and it took everything I had to keep the dinner I’d had only an hour before in my stomach where it belonged.
“Corrinne,” I said brokenly once the phone was in my hand and pressed to my ear.
“I can fucking see you sitting there, acting like your heart is broken. You want to know what broken is? When your parents disown you and kick you out before you’re seventeen. When you’re raped repeatedly on the streets because that’s the only way they’ll let you live. That’s what broken hearted is. Then I caught a break, got into college, lived in the dorm with this stupid cunt, and met Buck. But then this stupid bitch,” she shrieked. “Tried to take that all away from me. Lucky for me, though, that Buck was a dumbass and didn’t take what she’d said to heart. I was living a good life, too, until you fucked everything up by taking all my money!”
My head dropped, and my stomach continued to roil.
I felt it at the base of my throat, threatening to come up with each inhalation.
Swallowing convulsively, I said the only thing I could say. “I’m sorry.”
She laughed humorlessly. “Fuck sorry.”***Lennox
I flinched as, once again, she aimed the gun at me, and shot wide.
Bullet holes were spread out along my outstretched body, only inches away from my flesh.
My breath sucked in and I prayed for the four hundred and seventy fifth time.
Not for myself, though. For Bennett.
I didn’t want him to come in here and see me like this.
Because, if I was being honest, I was fairly sure I was about to die.
There was no way she’d let me leave.
Not alive.
And not with how hate filled she was.
Spewing venom was all she’d been doing for the last hour.