Children of Vice (Children of Vice #1)(88)

“Not here,” I said gently, trying to make sure no one was looking at me.

“HELP, PLEASE!” A man ran toward us, but I stood between him and Wyatt. “Ambulance seven, he’s injured.”

I didn’t care about anyone else. I just needed to get him to the house.

Thankfully to the side, the burning house began to collapse, drawing the attention of everyone, including the reporters. It felt like hours had passed since I’d last touched the door.

“Ivy Callahan,” I said, feeling the doorknob vibrate once before unlocking.

“What is going on? Where is he?” he asked, but I just closed the door and locked down the house again.

I took a deep breath before yelling, “ETHAN!” I ran back into the living room, seeing the pool of blood now beside him, the body slumped over. “ETHAN!” I dropped the bag I’d forgotten I was holding, kneeling in his blood, my hands shaking as I touched him. He was so pale…so very pale.

“Ethan…look, I got him. I got Wyatt,” I whispered, touching him. “Ethan, open your eyes, come on. WYATT, HELP HIM!”

Flinching first before moving his hands, he moved far too slowly toward Ethan’s neck, so I grabbed them and put them to his pulse.

“He’s not dead. He’s not, so f*cking save him instead of everyone else.”

He took a deep breath thankfully, before rolling him over to see the gunshot wound. “He’s lost a lot of blood, but if we get him to the hospital—”

“No hospital.”

“Have you lost your mind? He is barely hanging on!”

“THEN FIX HIM! SAVE HIM!” I screamed. He wasn’t doing anything I couldn’t do! “Did you forget who you are? Who he is? He is a Callahan! You are both Callahans. How bad will it look if he goes out like this barely hanging on? He knew you’d be out there. He told me to find you. So I did. Shot…and…ugh…” I cried out, reaching over to place my hand on his wound. I bit back the pain.

“Ivy—”

“Shot, bleeding, in pain, and having a miscarriage, I found you. So save him, please…please, Wyatt, please. Save him, please,” I cried, putting my head on Ethan’s chest. Everything hurt and I didn’t want to say it out loud. I didn’t want to think it. How could I tell Ethan when he was in that state when I hadn’t even told him I was pregnant to begin with?

“Get off him, Ivy,” Wyatt said and when he did, he started to rip Ethan’s shirt, exposing his bare abs and chest. “Are you strong enough to move?”

“What do you need me to do?” I wiped my face and nose.

“Dump out what is left in the med kit,” he said, on his knees, pressing around Ethan’s wound. “Hopefully there is a scalp—”

He paused, hearing the mountain of shit that poured out on the ground.

“What do you need?”

“Everything,” he muttered, somewhat amazed. “First the gloves. You put on a pair.”

I handed them to him. But he didn’t put them on, instead reaching for something else. “Pour the antiseptic, the one in the brown bottle, over his wound first then the rest on his stomach. He’s going to need blood, and since that’s the one thing this bag doesn’t have, I have no other choice.”

He muttered, tying a tourniquet over his own left arm. He tore the small alcohol pad on his arm before sticking the needle and tube into his vein, doing the same to Ethan. “You’re going to live and I’m going to hold this shit over you for the rest of your life,” Wyatt muttered, pinching the tube for a moment before blood began to flow. “Wyatt, grow up. Wyatt, remember who you are. My reply to any of your shitty one-liners will now be, do you remember that time when I became your human blood bag while I operated on you?”

He put the gloves on and then reached for a small vial of liquid. “Can you hold this up?”

My arm was on fire, but I nodded anyway, taking it as he switched hands. Then he reached for scalpel, bent over Ethan’s wound and ground out, “Till you’re old, gray, and senile I’ll tell the story about how I left a patient to die to come to save your damn life. And just in case I’m senile too, I’m making this scar a little bigger, so you’ll at least have something to trigger a memory. I’m going to be so damn petty, you’re going to wish I’d just let you die.”

“I’m sure he’ll love that,” I whispered, tired, watching, one hand in the air.

“I don’t care if he loves it or not,” Wyatt muttered to himself. “He’s just going to have to deal.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

He glanced up at me, shaking his head before looking back down, rubbing the blood on his two gloved fingers.

“What is it?”

“For some reason his blood has thickened. It’s the only thing keeping him from bleeding more. Was he taking anything?”

“Does your brother seem like the person to take anything?” I asked him and then thought for a second.

“He must have had something with a lot of protein then…” he whispered to himself, leaning over to see more. “Ivy, see if you can hand me the thing that looks like tweezers,” he said, reaching to the side of him.

“You mean the forceps? Sure.” I reached over to him.