by J. Sterling
Seeing it move as I tore out of the parking lot stressed me out. How the hell was I going to reach her before Derek did? What if he hurt her? I raced in their direction, my stomach knotted with fear, my mind racing with more what ifs than I could process. I refused to think the worst. I couldn’t.
But when her dot stopped moving, a whole new level of stress filled me.
Why had it stopped? Was she at a stop sign? Did she throw her phone out the window? Was she at a red light?
I pressed on the gas, my instincts screaming at me that something was terribly wrong. I sensed it, knew it. I felt the danger radiating through me, tearing me up inside.
As I sped toward her location, her dot remained stationary. I pressed another button to overlay a satellite map, which revealed she wasn’t near any structures—no houses, no schools, no businesses. Sofia was on a two-lane road near the coast, her dot still motionless.
Panic unlike anything I’d ever known before crashed over me from head to toe. I closed in on her location, agonizing over what would be waiting for me. What would I see when I reached her?
One last curve and the glow of taillights caught my eye. Speeding closer, I saw smoke pouring from an engine, the front of a car crushed against the base of a massive oak tree.
Sofia’s car!
When I made out her silhouette slouched over the steering wheel, I couldn’t get to her fast enough. I slammed on my brakes and my car skidded to a stop right behind hers, the tires kicking up gravel from the road’s shoulder. Frantic, I unbuckled my seatbelt and jumped out, my feet almost slipping in the gravel the same way my tires had. Pounding on her driver’s side window, I screamed her name, begging her to come to, but she didn’t move.
Adrenaline flooded through me as I yanked on her door handle, trying to pull it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. I pulled and pulled, as if I could somehow will it to unlock and let me in.
I shouted her name again and again, my throat already raw, but she remained still, slumped over the steering wheel. This can’t be happening repeated in my head as shock turned me ice-cold.
I pounded on the window again, praying it would break.
It didn’t.
And she still hadn’t moved.
Tears slid down my face, and at first, I had no idea where the moisture was coming from. It blurred my vision, and I desperately needed to see. I couldn’t help her if I couldn’t see her.
“Sofia,” I yelled again, but it was no use.
Desperate, I ran back to my car and called 911 from the console, and gave the dispatcher my location, ignoring her as she begged me to stay on the line until help arrived. I didn’t have time to waste staying on the phone with strangers when the girl I was falling in love with was hurt, unconscious, and I couldn’t fucking get to her. So I left the line open and ran back to Sofia’s car.
“Sofia, please.” My voice strangled out a hoarse cry as sirens blared in the distance. I couldn’t tell how close or far they were, but that seemed quick—too quick, I’d only called them seconds ago—and nothing made sense.
“Turn around, Ryan.”
Derek’s voice yanked my attention away from my angel. In all the chaos, I’d completely forgotten about him.
How could I have forgotten that he was the reason we were in this mess in the first place?
“I said turn around.”
His voice was low but deadly, angrier than I’d heard before. Wary, I slowly turned to face him, wondering what the hell he wanted now. Hadn’t he done enough?
My gaze instantly homed in on his hand and the gun he had pointed straight at me.
Had he planned on shooting Sofia? I looked back at her, and for the first time felt thankful that she still hadn’t woken up. I didn’t want her to see any of this.
“You were going to shoot her?” I asked, completely shocked. This guy was seriously fucking deranged.
He laughed, taking a menacing step toward me like I’d done to him all those times before. “Her? No, Ryan. I was never going to shoot Sofia.”
My head swam. Nothing made sense. Nothing added up. “Then why do you have a gun?”
He sneered at me. “You just can’t stay away, can you? I warned her. Told her if she destroyed my future, I’d destroy hers.”
“I know. She told me you want custody,” I said, focusing on his finger hovering over the trigger.
“Custody?” He let out a sick laugh. “That’s what she told you? Genius.”
“She said you were going to take Matson from her.” I shook my head, more confused than ever.
It was funny how you reacted when something unimaginable happened to you—like having a loaded gun pointed in your direction. My ears picked up every sound—the sirens getting closer by the second, an owl hooting nearby. My eyes noticed every detail—the way the wind blew Derek’s hair into his eyes but he refused to brush it out of the way, how his beard looked rough and unkempt, and the way his roughly loosened tie hung crooked. But my brain—my brain couldn’t process the words he said and make them make sense. My senses were heightened, but my mind seemed dulled.
Derek scoffed at me. “I would never take Matson from her. What would I do with a kid?”
My brain raced, spinning in circles but still unable to figure shit out. If he hadn’t threatened to take Matson from her, then what exactly had he threatened her with?
“Still confused, huh? All looks and no brains? Let me spell it out for you.” He raised the weapon higher, aiming for my head. “I told her I’d kill you. She knew I meant it after I told her what I’d done to one of our classmates back in high school.”
“Why?”
“Guess you’ll never know,” he said, smirking like this was the most enjoyable thing he’d done all day.
Sirens blared, but Derek remained unconcerned. I wondered if he even heard them or not. Maybe his brain was on point, but his senses were dulled like mine.
“The cops are getting closer.”
“You think I don’t hear them?” he shouted before lowering the gun and kicking at the dirt. He started hitting his own head with his free hand the way someone who was at their wit’s end would do. “Why did you have to be around? None of this would be happening if you had just gone away like you were supposed to!”
Although tires skidded and screeched to a stop nearby, Derek continued ranting, blaming me for all his problems and saying everything was all my fault.
I held up my hands. “If you shoot me, you’ll go to jail. You can’t get whatever it is you want from behind bars.” It was a reach, but I had to try something. Otherwise, this guy was going to kill me, and I really didn’t want to die.
He laughed again, the sick smirk back on his face. “You think I’d go to jail? You really don’t know anything, do you, Ryan? My father would never allow that to happen. Huntingtons don’t go to jail.”
“Put down the gun,” a voice boomed over a megaphone, but Derek’s wild eyes stayed fixed on mine.
He was going to shoot me. I was going to die. They say your life flashes before your eyes just before you die, and they were right. In that moment, it happened for me.
It was more like a movie montage, scenes of my childhood with Frank and my parents mixing with my present day. I saw both my brothers, their girlfriends, my mom and dad, Grant—and, of course, Sofia and Matson. They whipped through my mind’s eye in a flash, each image filled with smiles and happiness. I was thankful for having the chance to have experienced that, the joy and the love.
“Put it down!” the voice demanded again, and my blood ran cold.
Derek’s finger tightened on the trigger in slow motion as shots rang out. I covered my ears with my hands, the sounds so fucking loud around me as I bent over, convinced I could duck and avoid any flying bullets or shrapnel. Dirt kicked up, gravel hit me in the shin, but otherwise I was unhurt.
Derek’s body recoiled three times in rapid succession before his footing gave way and he fell to the ground. Blood poured from his chest, his body unmov
ing, but his eyes remained open. It was the first time I’d ever seen a dead body, and I hoped it would be my last.
Blood pooled around him, thicker and darker than I’d imagined it would be. Blood doesn’t flow like Kool-Aid the way they show it on TV and in the movies. Real blood is thick and moves slowly like molasses as it leaves your body.
Police surrounded me, demanding I get on my knees with my hands behind my head.
I yelled at them to get Sofia out, desperately pointing toward her car before I followed their directions. I had no idea how much time had passed, but my girl still hadn’t moved.
Family
Ryan
Once the police had determined I wasn’t a threat, I bolted toward the ambulance where the paramedics already had Sofia strapped in and were preparing to take her to the hospital.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked the paramedic.
“General,” he said.
“Is she going to be okay?” I was frantic. She looked so pale, already hooked up to an IV, machines reporting her vitals with annoying beeps. But what bothered me most was that her eyes were still closed.
“She’s stable. I gave her something for the pain.”
“She was awake?” How much she had seen and heard?
“Only for a minute. We gotta go,” the paramedic said, then climbed into the back of the ambulance and shut the doors.
I ran toward my car, determined to follow them, but a police officer stepped in front of me, blocking my path.
“Not so fast, Mr. Fisher. We need your statement.”
I shook my head wildly. “I have to go with her,” I pleaded, but he refused, his hand still in the air.
“It’s either now or later.”
“Then later. Please. I have to go. I need to go.” I felt like I was going to go crazy as the ambulance pulled away, sirens screaming, my girl in the back.
“You’ll be at the hospital?” the policeman asked as he surveyed our surroundings, and I did the same.
Derek’s body was being processed. The coroner had just arrived, a police photographer was taking pictures of the body, and yellow evidence markers dotted the scene.
“I’ll be at General,” I told the cop. “I won’t leave. Unless she’s released, and then I’ll be at her house. Meet me there. I’ll come to you. Either way, I don’t care. just let me go, please.” I was desperate, not making any sense, but he finally relented and stepped aside.
“Drive the speed limit,” he yelled as I closed my door and pulled onto the road, spitting out gravel behind me.
Nothing had sunk in yet—not Derek having a gun on me, not him almost shooting me, not him being shot and killed. The only thing I could think about was Sofia in the back of that ambulance . . . all alone.
I called the bar and told Frank briefly what had happened and where I was headed. Contacting Sofia’s parents entered my mind, but I had no way to reach them. I had no idea where they lived, and I didn’t have their phone number. They had to be worried since she never arrived to pick up Matson after work.
It hurt my heart to imagine how scared Matson must be. The two of them were so close, and Sofia told me how he hated having his routine changed. And her not showing up to pick him up was one hell of a change.
I decided to make one last call before I pulled into the hospital parking lot, and dialed Grant’s number. He would want to know what happened. He’d never let me forget it if he read about in the paper or learned about it online instead of from me. And since he had no other life aside from butting into mine, I knew he’d meet me at the hospital and keep me company while I waited. Our conversation was brief; I cut it short when I reached the hospital.
After parking in the first space I found, I ran into the emergency entrance and headed straight for the woman sitting behind the check-in desk.
“Can I help you?” she asked with a smile.
“Sofia Richards. They just brought her in?”
“She’s here, but she can’t see anyone yet. Are you family?”
“No.”
“Husband?”
“No.”
“You’ll have to have a seat then. I’ll let the on-call nurse know you’re waiting for her. In the meantime, I’ve called her emergency contacts, so they should be here soon.” She dismissed me after that, her eyes focused on the computer screen in front of her.
When I hadn’t moved after a few seconds, she glanced back up at me and frowned as she pointed at the empty chairs in the waiting room.
Feeling defeated, I headed toward the ugly fabric chairs and plopped into one. And I waited. I would waited all night, all week if I had to.
Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait alone for long.
A woman walked into the waiting room holding Matson’s hand. As soon as he spotted me, his eyes lit up.
“Ryan! You’re back!”
He ran over to me, and I opened my arms to scoop him up.
“Hey, buddy. I missed you.”
The woman gave us a curious look, probably thinking our reunion seemed over the top.
“I missed you too. Mama said you were someplace far away, and that’s why I couldn’t give you your drawing yet. You liked the cape best, though, right? I told her you would.”
I propped him on my hip as he talked a mile a minute, filling me in on what had happened in his life lately. My heart swelled with so much emotion, I was afraid it would fucking burst.
“Matson, who’s your friend?” The woman who looked way too much like my Sofia focused her gaze on me.
“This is Ryan. Mama’s boyfriend. You know.” Matson shrugged, completely unaware of why he was here at the hospital.
I placed Matson on his feet and extended a hand to Sofia’s mom. “It’s nice to meet you. Is she okay?”
“You too, Ryan. I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Mira,” she said before glancing over her shoulder. “And that’s my husband, Craig.” She pointed at the burly man hovering around the check-in desk, looking as anxious and worried as I felt. “We’re waiting to find out. They said she’s still being examined. Do you know what happened?”
I glanced down at Matson, who watched me with rapt attention. “I do, but—” I stopped myself from saying anything, not wanting Matson to hear this.
“Is Mama okay?” He looked up at his grandmother with big eyes.
She gave him a reassuring smile and kissed the top of his head. “We’ll know soon.”
The kid was smart, I’d give him that. He saw right through her. Within seconds, his eyes welled with tears.
“Hey, hey,” I said, crouching in front of him to focus his attention on me. “The guys in the ambulance told me she’d be okay. She just didn’t feel good, so they gave her something to help her sleep.”
“Okay,” he said before leaning his head against my shoulder and yawning.
Sofia’s mom stared at me. “You two kind of look alike,” she said with a grin, and Matson’s head shot up.
“It’s the eyes. Mine are blue just like Ryan’s.”
“You’re right. They are.” She smiled at him before looking back at me. “I need to know what happened,” she whispered, and I nodded.
“Not here.” I nodded toward Matson, and she understood.
The hospital doors slid open, and a bunch of people walked in all at once. It took me a minute before I realized that it was my brothers, their girlfriends, and Grant.
“Ryan!” Nick called out as I pushed up from the chair and hugged my younger brother. “Are you okay?” he asked, and I nodded.
Frank grabbed me next, pulling me into a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Who’s watching the bar?” I asked, suddenly realizing that if they were all here, then no one was there.
“I closed it,” Frank said, and when I asked him how, Nick laughed.
“He went old school. Just wrote a note and taped it on the door. It probably blew off the second you walked away.”
Frank shrugged. “I don’t care.”
&n
bsp; “Glad you’re okay.” Grant stepped forward and patted me on the back. “Is our angel all right?”
“They said she would be, but we haven’t heard anything yet.”
A look passed between us, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. The last time we were in a hospital together, it was for him. Who would have thought we’d be back so soon, and for Sofia this time?
“Oh my gosh, is this Matson? Are you Matson?”
Claudia bypassed me and headed straight for the cutest boy in the room. He clung shyly to his grandmother for only a second before putting out his hand for her to shake.
She took it and said, “I’m Claudia. I’m, um . . . Frank’s girlfriend.”
“Who’s Frank?” Matson asked, and we all laughed.
“Frank is Ryan’s brother,” Claudia said as Jess walked over.
“Hi, Matson. I’m Jess. I’m Nick’s girlfriend.”
Matson’s face scrunched up. “Who’s Nick?”
More laughter. “Nick is Ryan’s other brother.”
“You sure have a lot of brothers,” Matson said, giving me a disgruntled look. “I don’t have any.”
Honest to God, I had to bite my tongue. It took everything in me to not tell him that I could fix that.
Sofia’s dad joined us and I made quick introductions. Everyone started chatting at once as if they were old friends. And just when I thought my heart couldn’t expand any more, my parents walked through the doors.
Frank saw my surprise. “I called them.”
Dad grabbed me first and tried to squeeze the life out of me. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I don’t know what we’d do if we lost any of you boys.” His voice broke, which surprised me. I’d rarely seen him so choked up.
The second he let go of me, my mom swooped in. “Ryan, are you okay? Frank told us what happened. You almost died?”
Mom’s voice was loud and I tried to shush her, but it was too late. Sofia’s mom was at our side in an instant.
“Almost died? Ryan, I need to know everything that happened. Right now.” Mira’s fierce expression softened and she stopped to look at my mom. “Hi, I’m Mira. Sofia’s mom.”
