"There is blood everywhere,” the voice says, and I have to wonder if anyone else is with her. "Who are you?" she asks me, and I can only imagine the state of my face with the dirt and grime mixed with the blood that is surely pouring out of my cuts.
"May…" I start to say, but another roll of thunder comes through, and the darkness chases it.
She picks up my arm, her fingers going to my pulse. "It’s barely there."
"I’m right here!” I scream at her, but nothing comes out. Not even a groan this time.
"I’m right here,” I chant over and over again, but this time my body fades further and further away from her voice. "I’m right here."
Chapter 3
Chelsea
Lightning strikes again as he looks up at me with one eye. The other one is swollen shut. His mouth tries to move, but no sounds come out. His arm comes up again and then crashes down.
My heart hammers in my chest as I find the source of the blood. His white shirt is soaked with a big red stain on his side, and I pull it up to see he’s wounded there. "Can you hear me?" I ask him, my voice shaking as I take deep breaths to stay calm. I lift his shirt higher and see he’s got bruising but no other open wounds. He has one piece of cloth tied around his leg, and his legs have bloodstains on them, too. Hearing the sound of rocks crunching under tires makes me look up. The wind blows through here, slamming the front door, and I look around to make sure I don’t see Gabriel.
The lights flicker on and off again as I hear a car door. I wonder if the person who put him in this state is coming to finish the job.
Fear creeps into me, making me get up now, and I look around the house, wondering where he keeps the gun, but I don’t have to look far before the door swings open. Ethan stands there soaked to the bone, the gun drawn in his arms, aiming it at the person on the floor. "Chelsea," he says my name as lightning flashes behind him.
"I’m okay," I tell him right away. "The kids are okay."
"What the fuck?" he says, looking at the man on the floor in front of him. I look at his chest, hoping to see movement, and it rises and falls so slowly that if you aren’t focused, you would think he was dead.
"There was a banging on the door," I start to tell him, and the tears pour out of me, and I just let them fall as the fear now leaves my body, knowing that Ethan is here. "And then…" I start to talk, but the man on the floor moans.
"You opened the door to a stranger?" he shouts at me, and I glare at him now.
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I hiss at him, and the man holds his side. "How the hell was I supposed to know?"
"Ethan." He calls my brother’s name, and my brother’s face goes white as he bends next to him. He looks the man up and down and then focuses on the man's arms. Picking one up, he washes the dirt off him with his shirt. "Ethan." He repeats his name in almost a whisper. I’ve heard this voice before, I think to myself. I know I have, but with the thunder and the monsoon of rain coming down, I can’t focus.
"It’s Mayson," he says, his voice frantic. My stomach drops, and Emily comes into the house with the phone at her ear. My hand goes to my mouth now as I look down at the beaten man in front of me. He is covered in dirt and blood, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he crawled here on his hands and knees. I think back to the first time I met him.
“Chelsea.” My brother, Ethan, called my name clear across the field and I walked over without thinking twice about it. Only when I got closer did my heart speed up as I looked at the guy standing beside my brother. He was just as tall, maybe even a touch taller. He was definitely bigger than Ethan was. His arms bulged out more, his chest wider. The tattoos on his arms shining orange in the sunlight. “This,” he tells the guy next to him, “is my baby sister.”
“Younger sister,” I corrected him. “This is Carey.” He said his name and then corrected himself, “Sorry, Mayson.”
I smiled at this stranger in front of me, and he smiled obligatory at me. "Nice to meet you.”
The sunglasses hid his brown eyes. My heart sped up as he took my hand in his and it felt like an electric shock ran through me, all the way to my bones. It was also the day I secretly started my crush on him.