I thought fast and my first thought was, alleviate the danger. Get us safe. So I got up, raced to them, saw the blood spatter on walls, floors, the pools of it growing around their bodies.
I snatched up their guns, ran back to Deke, tossing them in the fireplace as I went.
He was still on his side.
I fell to my knees, put my hands to him and gently rolled him to his back.
His white tee was no longer white.
It was dark.
Covered in blood.
My insides started burning as I moved my hands to him, feeling nothing but warmth too warm, all of it wet, my eyes shifting to his shadowed face.
His eyes were on me.
“I called Chace,” I said, finding the source of some gushing, pressing in, still searching, my eyes not leaving his. “He’s coming.”
“Good, baby,” he whispered, the words faint.
Faint.
Not Deke.
So not Deke.
“Stick with me,” I ordered, finding another source, pressing in. The blood flowed over my fingers and I beat back a whimper, bending close to him. “Stick with me, baby.”
“With…you,” he pushed out.
There seemed to be more sources of blood. Fuck, blood everywhere.
I put my chest to his, covering more area, resting my body on him, putting pressure on.
My face close to his, I saw his eyelids slowly closing.
I put my bloody hands to both of his cheeks, sensing company, someone coming in from the back stealthily.
I didn’t look.
I shook Deke’s head and demanded, “Stick with me. Stick with me, baby. Stick with me, goddammit.”
His eyes slowly opened.
“Justice,” Chace said.
“Wither to dust,” Deke whispered.
No.
Nonononono.
No.
My nose stung, my eyes filled with wet.
“No,” I bit out. “You’re with me. Stay with me.”
“Ambulance, immediately. Man down at ninety-seven Ponderosa Road. Get them here now,” Chace bit out.
“Do it at your side, gypsy,” Deke said softly, his voice fading.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, honey. Yes. Wither to dust. At my side.”
“Yeah,” he breathed out.
His eyes closed.
“Deke,” I called.
“Jussy, roll off, let us get in,” Chace said, hand on my shoulder.
I ignored Chace, shook Deke’s head, called out, “Baby.”
“Jussy, need you to roll off, sweetheart.”
I shook Deke’s head again.
His eyes stayed closed.
“Deke!” I shrieked.
His eyes stayed closed.
Chace pulled me off, up, into his arms.
I struggled and screamed.
But fucking fuck, he was stronger than me.
Two officers went in and worked on him.
I kept struggling.
The ambulance came.
I got my shit together so they wouldn’t think I’d lost it and they’d let me ride with him.
It didn’t matter. Chace made them let me ride with him.
So, rushing out behind the gurney still pulling on my boots, I rode with him.
They took him from me at the hospital.
The whole time going there, they worked, they did it urgently, the words they said to each other and in their radios I blocked out because I could feel it.
I could feel it.
And Deke didn’t open his eyes.
* * * * *
Tate
Tate heard the woman screaming the minute he hit the doors of the emergency room.
It sounded nothing like her.
He still knew it was Justice.
His stomach dropped for the second time that night, the first one happening when he got the call from Chace.
Pulling his wife with him, feeling Jonas at his heels, with fast strides, he moved to the noise and stopped dead, his woman at his side, when he saw Justice, covered in blood, cornered, eyes wild, mouth a snarl, squaring off against three members of the hospital staff.
“Sir, please move away,” one of them said, catching Lauren, Jonas and Tate there.
“We’re friends of hers,” Tate told him.
“Tell them to get away,” Justice snapped. “Tate, tell them to leave me alone.”
Tate looked to Justice.
“They want to clean my hands,” she bit at him. “They want to take him from me. They don’t get him. I’m keeping him.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I’m keeping him until they give him back to me.”
He heard Laurie make a noise, felt her make a move but he looked down at her and shook his head.
“She needs to get cleaned up, sir, and she needs a sedative. She was there when—” one of the staffers started.
“Leave me with her,” Tate ordered.
“She’s exhibited signs she might get violent,” the man went on.
Tate spared him a glance and clipped, “Leave her with me.”
Tate felt the man’s gaze. He hesitated, but backed off, though only a couple of steps, the other two following.
Tate went to a standing gurney not close to Justice but closer than he’d been.
He hauled his ass up on it, opened his thighs, doing all this eyes locked on Justice.
When he got there, he said gently, “C’mere, Jussy.”
“Don’t make me wash him away, Tate,” she snapped.
“Honey, come here.”
“I’m keeping him with me,” she shot back.
“Jussy, right now, where would Deke want you to be?” he asked. “Who would he want minding you? Tell me.”
She did a shuffle step away from him, turning her shoulder, keeping eye contact over it.
Fuck, she was fucked up, in shock, way beyond tweaked.
“Deke was here right now, Jussy, who would he want taking care of you?” Tate asked quietly.