Before I realized it, we were being hustled into the back of an ambulance and the doors were closed with a loud bang.
Ruger died in the ambulance.
Twice.
And if it wasn’t for Indy being in the back with us, I’m not sure he would’ve survived the travel to the hospital. She worked on him to keep him alive while I clung to his lifeless, bloody hand, my medical training instantly gone, and replaced with a fear that I was about to lose the love of my life.
Thankfully, by the time we got to the hospital he had a pulse.
But he wasn’t out of the woods yet. He was in grave danger and as they rushed him into surgery there was a big chance he wasn’t going to survive.
I paced back and forward across the ER waiting to hear something. Anything. I could barely stand it. I had no idea what was going on or how long I’d been there. I chewed down my thumb nail as I paced, my heart pounding, my skin rippling with goosebumps because I was still dressed in my bridesmaid dress, and it was colder than the Arctic Circle in there.
I looked down at my hands. They were covered in blood. Ruger’s blood. But it wasn’t just all over my hands, the front of my dress was soaked with it and there were smears of it up and down my arms.
As the hot sting of fresh tears burned their way down my cold cheeks, the doors to the ER burst open and Bull rushed in with my mom.
“Chastity, are you okay?” My mom rushed over to me while my uncle hung back.
As soon as my mom’s arms went around me, I started to cry harder.
“I’m fine, but Ruger… they don’t think he’s going to make it.”
I looked at my uncle and suddenly hated him. Grief and fear collided in me, and I let it erupt out of me in an explosion of anger aimed right at him.
“Why are you even here? You’re probably happy he’s going to die.”
“That’s my best friend in there.”
“Your best friend?” I rounded on him, giving my anger full reign. I shoved him in the chest. “Your best friend? He’s in here because of you!”
I wasn’t sure that was exactly true. But I was blinded by pain and I needed someone to take some of it from me.
He turned his back on me and ran a hand through his hair.
“He saved my life. What more do you want?” I said angrily.
Bull swung back to look at me.
“What do I want? I want him to have kept his fucking hands off my niece. I want him to have not betrayed me by going behind my back with the one person I told him not to.”
“Betrayed you! He never betrayed you. He would fucking die for you.”
“He betrayed me the moment he touched you!”
We were yelling now.
“What do you want from him? To die because he fell in love with me? Because he makes me so damn happy? Because he treats me like a queen?” Tears spilled down my cheeks. “Because he loves me?”
“I want him to survive,” he said, his eyes wild. “I want him to not have three bullets in him. I want my best friend back. But I want him to not have fucking touched you!”
“Why can’t you be happy that I found someone who is good and decent and loves me like he does.”
“Because he was never meant for you.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I told him to never go near you. They all know they’re not to go near you. Every single King was warned.”
“Why? Why did you make such a stupid rule?”
“Because you deserve better than this life!”
“It’s not your choice!” I yelled.
Unable to stand another minute, I stormed away, my mind boiling with anger and fear and a terrible, terrible foreboding that Ruger was going to die. Leaving the waiting room, I found the smoker’s area and bummed a cigarette from a plump orderly who looked as exhausted as I felt.
His eyes raked up and down my blood-soaked dress. “Rough night?”
My hands shook as I lit the cigarette.
“You could say that,” I said, dragging in a lungful of smoke and barely holding back a cough. I wasn’t a smoker. But if I didn’t do something other than pace the ER and yell at my uncle, I was going to go insane.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
He shrugged. “Good. Because I’m no good at the whole comforting thing.”
“And yet you work in a hospital.”
“Yeah, well, my parole officer made me take this job.”
I nodded. “I see.”
His eyes rolled over my again, lingering on my chest area.
“Want to buy some weed?”
Again, I almost choked on the smoke. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
“You sure? I got this wicked stuff in my locker. A friend and I broke into the marijuana crop the Kings have growing out by the watermelon fields. Snuck in there under the cover of darkness and scored ourselves some wicked ganja.”