Gun Shy(49)

I glance at Pike. “Go,” he says, waving me away. “I’ll keep her here in case she needs to sign anything.”

Hannah is already on the table when the nurse ushers me into the theatre, clad in surgical scrubs, plastic bags over my boots. She leads me to the head of the bed, a green cotton sheet separating Hannah’s head and shoulders from the rest of her body. On the other side of the bed, an anesthetist watches her closely, glancing at a screen that displays heart rate and blood pressure. And her blood pressure is through the fucking roof. Poor Hannah. This baby is literally killing her just by existing. I stroke her hair. She might not know what’s happening, but it makes me feel better to lay my hand on her head and remind her she is loved.

Later that night, when Hannah is out of the recovery ward, Pike and I sit beside her hospital bed while our mother hovers silently at the foot of the bed. I called Amanda and asked her to pick up the younger kids from school. Everyone is safe, for now.

“My baby’s gone,” Hannah says, putting her hand on her stomach.

It’s still swollen, which I wasn’t expecting, but the doctors warned me she’d be pretty banged up for awhile after they removed her uterus to stop the bleeding.

Yeah. In the end, the decision was out of my hands. She almost died on the table when they went in to take the baby out. It was a boy. He looked all wrong, but he was still a baby. It still broke my fucking heart that he’d had to be conceived and suffer because people are cruel and vile and evil. He was alive for thirteen minutes, and Pike held him that whole time. I couldn’t bear to hold him, knowing that he was going to die in my arms.

We named him after my grandfather, my mother signed the paperwork, and then a nurse took him away.

I asked Hannah if she wanted to hold him, but she said no. I was relieved.

No kid should have to see something like that.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE





CASSIE





I was fall-down drunk the night it happened. The night Damon — well, you’ll see.

My eighteenth birthday. I’d been at the Grill, eating and sneaking beers on the side with Chase and the rest of the football boys. I think they pitied me in the aftermath of the accident, took me under their protection and made sure I was “taken care of,” in a way.

Chase had driven me home around eleven after we’d all stopped at the football field and had some more to drink. It had started raining while we were lying on the grass, drinking and passing around a joint that made my head spin every time I took a drag.

The porch light had been the only one still on, and I’d tried to unlock the front door as quietly as possible, but ended up making about the same amount of noise as a feral cat stuck in a trashcan. Suddenly, the door opened from the inside, yanked unceremoniously, and I fell flat on my face beside two bare feet. I watched, mesmerized, as droplets of water began sliding off my rain-soaked arm and dripping on to the floor, puddling beneath me.

“Fuck,” I muttered, my cheek buzzing from where it had hit polished wood. It’d hurt once the alcohol in my system burned up. I grabbed at the floor with clumsy fingers, trying to get up, when I was hoisted to my feet.

Damon was bleary-eyed as he glared at me as though he’d been sleeping. He was still wearing his police-issued shirt and pants, and the tan-colored clothes were wrinkled, adding to that “slept in” look.

“What do we have here,” he said, but it wasn’t really a question. He sighed, resting his forehead against the door momentarily. “A drowned rat. A drunk rat.”

I giggled. He slammed the door shut, circling me as I stood and dripped all over the floor.

“Are you… stoned?” he asked, grabbing my chin, forcing my eyes to meet his.

“No, Sheriff!” I replied, mock-saluting him. I dissolved into another pile of giggles because suddenly, everything was so fucking funny. I heard him mutter Jesus Christ under his breath.

“If your mother saw you—”

“Yeah, she’s not going to see me,” I cut him off, sobering a little. The giggles were gone, replaced by an intense sadness, a loneliness inside me that stretched as wide and as empty as the prairie surrounding us. The feeling sucker punched me in the gut, and I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering.

“Cassie—”

“She’s dead already,” I said. I started to cry. Big, heaving sobs and fat tears that rolled down my cheeks, mixing in with the rain and blurring my already less-than-stellar vision.

“Cassie.” Softer this time. Sympathetic. Arms went around me, even though I was soaked from the rain and probably smelled like stale beer. I rested my ear against his chest, and it was almost like somebody loved me for a moment. I closed my eyes, melting into Damon’s chest, listening to his heartbeat evenly under flesh and bone.

“Hey,” he said, leaning back a little. He tipped my face up with his finger. “We’ll get through this. It’s going to work out. Okay?”

I shook my head, utterly miserable. “Not okay. It’s not okay.”

“Cassie, stop,” he said quietly, his arms stiffening around me so I couldn’t breathe. “Stop.” I was a chatty drunk, an emotional drunk, and I didn’t heed the warning signs that signaled his turning mood.

“We have to turn her off,” I whispered against his chest. “We have to let her die.”