Seven Days (24 page)

“You?” I asked, confused.

“No, but they are going to ask a lot of questions, seeing as Ben’s in your bedroom right now,” he said, his voice ominous.

“Stop right there,” a voice said from behind us. Both of us had been so occupied with my sister that we hadn’t heard the approaching police officers, who now stood in the doorway to the living room. In the blink of an eye, Dallas had me situated between him and the cop, my back to them so it looked like we were in an embrace. Digging the revolver into the area of flesh just above my hip, he gave the officer a snarl.

“Let us past. Her father is dead and someone has beaten her sister. She’s in shock. Let me get her out of here,” he declared, ignoring the officer’s demand to raise his hands in the air. The blood drained from his face when I heard a second person, probably the officer’s back up, ascend the stairs and enter the house. The look in Dallas’ eye as he watched them turned from fierce and determined to wild and unpredictable. He was going to run for it, I fucking knew it. How did I get from between them before they realized he had a gun? Maybe that was his plan, to shoot them before they saw he was armed.

Time seemed to stand still in the next couple of seconds. The weight on my arms disappeared and I tried to turn and run as two separate, but distinct gunshots rang out through the trailer. One sent pain slicing through me, sending me to my back, hard, and the second resulted in the sound of something falling beside me heavily, and the warmth of blood covered me in all directions. I wanted to scream out, to cry, but I couldn’t. I thought I heard one more shot before everything went black.

“Oh my God!” Ryan’s frantic voice echoed from somewhere in the distance. “Carrie, Carrie,” he called out. “Stay with me. Oh my fucking God, that’s a lot of blood,” he freaked out. I tried to open my eyes and tell him I was okay, but I couldn’t. In fact, I was pretty sure I was the exact opposite of
okay
.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to back away from her,” another voice said, harshly. “Give our men room to work.”

“How could this have happened?” Ryan asked, disbelief ringing out in his tone. “How did I not see he was armed when I called you?” I could tell he was blaming himself for what happened, but he couldn’t have known that Dallas was capable of something like this. I’d known him almost my whole life and I hadn’t seen it coming. So the chance of him catching on to his plan at a glance was slim to none.

Something slipped over my face and it felt like my body was being lifted. I was weightless, but not floating, and breathing was no longer a chore. I tried to concentrate on the sounds I could hear, but I couldn’t pin point what was going on anymore.

“It’s not your fault!” I wanted to scream until all the noise going on around me faded into nothing. Then suddenly, I could see everything, or at least it felt like I could.

It was all different now. Instead of looking sad and desperate, kneeling beside my prone body, Ryan looked angry. He seemed to be pacing from room to room, taking in every single detail of the secrets I’d failed to tell him during our time together.

As I watched him, I tried to take in my house from an outside perspective. The wallpaper in the living room wasn’t replaced after my mom died. Instead, my dad had painted over the blood splatter with a red that matched, even when the stains turned brown with age. The carpet was the same, too. This time, he’d covered it with an area rug that was orange shag. It spanned from under the sofa to the border of the kitchen and all the way to the front door. The only item he’d seen fit to replace was the brown floral couch she’d died on. Apparently, it wasn’t salvageable. Although, the stained green and yellow plaid couch he’d replaced it with had been a curbside rescue.

I hadn’t realized how morbid it all was until I was older. Living in a house that still had active remnants of my mother’s death, nearly a decade later, seemed like the norm at the time. It was what you did when you didn’t have the money to replace things. You covered them up and hoped that no one would notice.

Looking around, I wasn’t sure there was anything in this broken down old house that would tell him all of my secrets, just the ones I didn’t hide. After a long time in my bedroom, he finally stomped out with a purpose, dropping to the carpet below me, careful to stay out of the red puddles surrounding me. What were those?

“
I can’t believe you didn’t think I would find out what you really are,” Ryan spat at me. Disgust was the most prevalent word flashing in my head to describe the expression masking his beautiful face. “You were using me.”

“
I wasn’t. I promise, I wasn’t!” I screamed at him, but he didn’t hear me. It was like my vocal chords had been ripped from my body, because only silence came from my lips.

“
Is this what you do? Find gullible, broken guys to scam? To make them fall in love with you? I heard you with him, telling him you loved him,” he shouted, pacing back and forth over my body. My eyes were squeezed shut. That wasn’t right. I was standing beside him, wasn’t I?

“Suction,” a voice called out.

“
I don’t love him, Ryan,” I tried again, even though he wasn’t looking at me. Well, not this version of me. The coroner was working on my dad, still lying on the couch.

“
Did you bag the other ones?” the older man looked up and through me to someone I couldn’t see.

“She’s trying to bleed out, get me another 100ccs of O, we’ve got to find this bullet so we can get the bleeding under control.”

“Get me a hematologist. Her blood isn’t even trying to clot.”

“
I was just trying to protect my sister. He had a gun for God’s sake! I was trying to get to her before it was too late. Fuck! I wasn’t too late, was I?” I sobbed. Just then, a gurney passed through the living room with my sister, still unconscious while the paramedics worked on her. She was boarded and had a c—collar around her neck. That couldn’t be right though? No one was around me, no one was around Dallas. No one in the room seemed to be working frantically to save us. It was like a coffee break for them.

“Pressure’s dropping,” a calm voice warned.

“Clamp,” another voice answered. “We need to work faster, people!”

Dropping to his knees, Ryan choked out a cry. I watched a myriad of emotions flit over his face until all that remained was sheer and utter devastation. “Oh my God,” he breathed like he was finally able to piece together everything that had occurred. “These are your monsters. This is what haunts you, isn’t it?”

“
Yes!” I grinned in relief. Even though he couldn’t hear me, he knew me well enough to see beyond his initial reaction. He sifted through the facts like the brilliant science-minded person he was and dug out the truth.

“I found it,” a gravelly voice announced. “Shit, this is going to be tricky. Stay with me, Carrie.”

“I’ve got that medicine you asked for in her IV, sir.”

“Good, now let’s—FUCK!”

**

“Okay, she’s back. We’ve got to get this done,” relief evident in the words.

“
I’m so fucking sorry that I didn’t hear what you were trying to tell me all week,” his eyes looked up from my limp body on the floor and found mine.

“
You can see me,” I gasped out.

“
I can see you,” he confirmed. “But, I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to what you were screaming at me.”

“
But I wasn’t—”

“
Yes, Carrie,” he said, solemnly. “You were. You wanted an escape and I was trying to trap you.”

“
You weren’t—”

“
I was selfish. I should’ve let you go and trusted that you’d find me anyway,” the sadness in Ryan’s golden eyes filled me with a desolation I couldn’t explain.

“
It’s okay,” I soothed, unable to move from where I was. I had no idea what was going on. I felt so fucking lost. I wasn’t bathed in white light or some cliché like that. I wasn’t flooded with pain, either. It was like I was in limbo. Was I in purgatory? Was I stuck here, staring at my lifeless body for eternity?

Where am I?” I asked, sitting in the empty recliner, confused by the fact that it felt solid underneath me. This contradicted everything I’d ever been told about being in the vapor or on a different plane.

“
You don’t know?” Ryan asked, not moving from his position next to the ‘other’ me.

“
No,” I shook my head, trying to look around the room for any clue.

“
Carrie, sweetheart,” he swallowed, tears filling those amber eyes that I’d grown to love. “You were shot. Dallas started a firefight with the police, but his aim was shit. Hit you in the stomach when you were trying to run away,” he pointed out the wound that now seemed to be gushing blood.

I tried to digest his information dump. It wasn’t new though. I’d been there and knew what happened to me. Even though it occurred in slow motion, it was over in the blink of an eye.

“
Oh,” I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to calm myself as everything that happened since I left the diner flooded through me at once.

“
It’s okay though,” he assured me. “You’re going to make it back home. I know you are, you have to,” he said, matter of fact.

“
Why are you so sure?”

“
Because I love you and you deserve to know what that feels like,” he said, simply as if it was the most obvious reason in the world.

“Got it. Let’s close her up,” the voice said through the fog. “The rest is up to her now. Fight, Carrie.”

“
Oh,” I choked out before light finally exploded behind my eyes causing me to gasp for breath. I wasn’t floating away. I was in pain. It ricocheted through every single molecule in my body and radiated out and down to my toes until I felt like I wanted to climb out of my skin. A deep throbbing filled me so much that I could hear it ringing in my ears.

As awareness returned to me, my hallucinations replayed in my head, giving me a chance to make sense of it all. Had Ryan really been there? I knew he was the one who called the cops. He’d saved me and, hopefully, Britton. My hands clenched into fists against the stiff blanket covering me. Even though it was probably soft, if felt like a thousand needles against my sensitized skin.

“Carrie! Carrie! Are you awake?” I heard my sister call out from somewhere beside me. “Someone!” I felt the bed shift beside me.

“She’s waking up!” she shouted after I heard a loud beep and a garbled hello echo through the room.

Then other noises started to filter in. The steady beep of my heart monitor, the air conditioner, light conversation beyond my room, the sound of wheels over tile and ringing phones overwhelmed my already aching head. I hurt so fucking bad and everything felt like it was too heavy, especially my eyelids. Cold, gloved hands pried my eyes open and a light was shined into each in turn.

“Looking good,” a gruff, but familiar voice said. “She’s coming to. Grab her vitals and I’ll get some orders written up for you,” he said and I heard a door open and shut.

“Ouch,” my voice finally worked, as if on a delay. It was rough, gravelly from none use. My eyes opened, and then squeezed shut immediately. A hiss sounding out involuntarily thanks to the evils of the fluorescent lighting overhead. “Turn it off,” I demanded. “Please.” Seconds later I could feel a darkening behind my eyes.

“How’s your pain? On a scale from one to ten?” a kindly voice asked me. Because I didn’t get a good look at her in the half a second my eyes were open, I had no clue if she was a doctor or a nurse.

“What is the number that means a sledgehammer, a hacksaw, and a marching band?” I asked and then what felt like a call button was pressed into my right hand.

“That good, huh? Well, you were shot, so I can’t imagine it feel like a sunshine lollipop parade,” she responded.

“It’s definitely a parade,” I grumbled.

“This is your pain medication, sweetheart,” the nice voice explained the button in my hand. “It’s on demand for right now, so press it,” she coached, showing me how to use it. “This is a test to make sure you can use your hand, too. Double duty,” she chuckled. Seconds later, I was filled with a pleasant, hazy numbness that finally allowed me to keep my eyes open. My angel was definitely a nurse. A sweet looking woman in purple scrubs, her brown hair pulled into a low ponytail.

“Thank you,” I croaked. The pain was still there, just on the outer reaches, but I didn’t seem to care anymore.

“Your sister told me a little about your family history, hon,” my nurse said. Now that I could read the white board near the door, I could see her name was Trudy. “If you feel like you can’t handle it, or if you feel like you can’t be trusted to administer your own pain without going overboard on the dilaudid, let me know and I’ll get the doctor to switch you to a different method of pain control,” she explained with a kind smile. She knew about my genetic predisposition to addiction. Britton had told her. Relief filled me, knowing that my sister was okay. I wanted to smile that I hadn’t been too late. She was here.