Shift Happens (Providence Family Ties 2)

“Oh, and when I have to give Sasha away at her wedding, I’ll deliberately take a woman with me.”

Ryan rolled his head to face his husband, but I couldn’t see the expression on his face from how I was sitting. “That’s going too far. You go get shot and see how you like it.”

The fact he was conscious and talking was a good thing, but I could hear how much it was costing him and was taking most of his weight now. We needed to get him to a hospital ASAP.

Just then, there was a weird metallic clinging noise, followed by an outraged scream and a thud. After that, it sounded like multiple soup cans hitting the tarmac behind us.

“What was that?” Remy barked at Sasha.

“Well, either she tripped and fell back into the guns, or— Actually, no, she fell back into the guns.” Then she straightened up quickly, hitting her head on the underside of my truck. “She’s shot.”

We all looked at each other, then back over at her. “What do you mean?” Remy clipped. “None of us shot her.”

“I didn’t say I knew who did it,” she hissed, crawling backward. “I just said she’d been shot. Whoever did it was a genius because she’s holding right here”—she fisted her hand over her right clavicle—“and dropped the gun she was shooting. When she fell backward, though, she knocked some of the others out, so she might start up again.”

Just as Ryan’s eyes were fluttering shut, flashing lights began reflecting off the very damaged house and vehicles.

Announcing themselves, we heard the police tell Fita to lie face down on the ground. Then there was a lot of screaming and bellowing coming from a woman I assumed was her, as some of the officers ran over to us.

“We need an ambulance now,” Sam yelled, trying to stand up with Ryan in his arms.

Seeing him struggling, Remy helped, and they both ran over to where the paramedics were pulling up.

The handover was quick, as was their departure, and after that, all I could absorb was the destruction around us, the fading sounds of the sirens, and what looked like a field of flashing lights.

I didn’t even look at the rifles scattered all over the place or at all of the casings littering the ground at the end of the driveway.

I didn’t look over at where the bitch was being loaded into her own ambulance.

I didn’t hang my head or fall.

I stood frozen, wondering why anyone would want to do something like this to someone, and also where the fuck she got all of the weapons and ammunition from.

Then I heard familiar voices calling my name, just as Sasha put her arms around me and sobbed into my chest with Milkshake between us.

Throughout it all, his helmet had stayed in place, but his goggles had slipped slightly, enabling me to see one of his eyes staring at the bridge of his nose.

That’s when I had a profound thought.

Looking at the eye that hadn’t shifted, I realized that sometimes things stay exactly the same, while some of the most important aspects of our lives change entirely. A bit like good things happening from bad and gains coming from losses.

Materialistically, I could see what’d been lost tonight.

But it wasn’t the materialistic stuff that mattered. It was great to have, but it was lives that were the most important things.

Chapter Eighteen

Sasha

I was colder than I’d ever been in my life, even though Florida temperatures broached temperatures that could only be described as ‘melt the skin off your bones’ hot.

All I could see when I closed my eyes was my dad’s head falling over Remy’s bicep and him weakly mouthing, “I love you.”

I’d replayed the whole thing a million times in my head, along with all my favorite memories of him.

The day he’d had to take me to buy stuff for my first period, and he’d had to ask a young checkout girl what to get. The first time I’d been fitted for a bra, and he’d yelled at my chest not to get any bigger. My first debate. My first day at school. When I’d fallen off my bike and cut my knee and Ryan had freaked out and rushed me into the ER when he couldn’t get through to Sam at work and thought I was going to die from a skinned knee.

I remember the father and daughter dances at school and how my school played two songs for us so I could dance with both of them. The day Malcolm had bought me Milkshake and Ryan had tripped over the rug he loved so much when he’d seen his eyes and tried to get away from him in case he was possessed.

The first time he taught me to swim, and I started yelling and refusing to do it. So, making sure I had the buoyancy bands on my arms and a vest with them in it tightly zipped up, he’d pushed me into the pool. It might sound harsh, but it’d worked, and within a minute, I was splashing and screaming because I loved it so much.