Next In Line: A Cake Series Novel

by J. Bengtsson

  Jess bolted to her feet, her fingers grazing over the hole in the fabric of the shirt. “Oh, god. You were hit.”

  I flinched at her slightest touch, dots of black invading my vision. She jerked her hand back, her fingers tinted red.

  Grace’s head jerked up, newfound purpose erasing her fear. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  “It’s in my shoulder. I’ll be fine.”

  But was it in my shoulder? It seemed lower than that, but what did I know? I’d never been shot before, nor had I ever paid much attention to human anatomy.

  “It’s not fine.” She grabbed my right hand and pulled me. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” I said, turning her the other direction. The front, where the exits were and where Grace wanted to go, seemed the logical choice, but it was too far to travel. “Not that way. I know where a closer exit is.”

  As soon as I said that, chairs began to move as others crawled out from their hiding places and followed us. Handfuls of concertgoers, hearing my claim of an exit, my promise of safety, put their faith in me. I looked back to find scores of people trailing behind. I moved my crowd toward the back of the stadium, keeping them low and hugging the stage I’d been performing on only minutes earlier. Somewhere, toward the back of the long wooden platform, was a hatch door with no handle from the outside. It was used by the arena for emergency situations—a way to get security guards out into the crowd quickly. I was banking on the fact that they’d done just this and that the hatch door would now be open.

  “Quinn.” I looked up when I heard my name quietly called, and saw him, his head poking out of the hatch door. Evan. He’d found the exit for me. “Over here.”

  Evan swung the door open wider as we neared.

  “Where’s Tucker?” I asked as my group began streaming through the exit.

  “Looking for you. He ran out onto the stage, into the gunshots.” The horror of the words he’d just spoken hit him hard. I was here; his father was not.

  “Listen to me.” I grasped his shirt and pulled him close. “I need you to lead this group out the exit doors in the back. Find someplace safe for them. Jess won’t be happy. Tell her I’ll be right back.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Find your dad.”

  He nodded, in no position to resist.

  I backed away from the door, pushing Jess through the opening and, as she was swallowed up by the others escaping, she grabbed for my hand. I didn’t take it.

  “No. No, Quinn.”

  “I’m coming after I get everyone in. Go.”

  Her objections could be heard even after Grace and Elliott and a flood of other bodies pushed her forward. I prayed Evan was doing his job and dragging her away. More people crammed through the door on the side of the stage, hopefully on their way out of the stadium and headed toward safety. But me? I walked away from that.

  I didn’t know what it was or why I had to go back, but I just did. Instinctively, I knew he’d been shot, that he needed help, that I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let him die. The only positive to searching for Tucker was I knew exactly where he’d gone. To the stage, looking for me. And that was where I found him, bleeding out from a bullet wound to the leg. He’d managed to drag himself behind one of the amps and had carved out a nice little hiding spot for himself. Resourceful Tucker had already fashioned a tourniquet out of his belt by the time I arrived.

  And I eyed another favorite accessory of his. “Good god, Tucker, tell me that’s not your handkerchief?”

  He’d tied it around the wound, stemming the flow of blood.

  “As it turns out, I have everything I need to survive a gunshot wound except an extra leg to walk on.” His eyes settled on my chest and his face twisted. “Oh, dammit, Quinn. What are you doing here? You’ve got to get to an ambulance. I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “I’m going now. With you,” I said, scanning the stage. “Do you know what happened to the guys?”

  “Mike and Matty ducked out of the right side of the stage where I was standing. I didn’t see Brandon, but I assume he went left. I saw you go down and was trying to get to you, but then this happened.” Tucker grabbed my arm. “Did you see Evan?”

  “Yes. Under the stage. He’s fine.”

  Tucker exhaled, relieved. “That’s where I told him to go.”

  “Yeah, well, he saved a lot of people opening that door under the stage. He has Jess and Grace.”

  “Smart kid, that one.”

  “He is. You did a good job with him, Tucker.”

  “Considering.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but didn’t have time to ponder. Even though the shooting had stopped several minutes ago, the situation still seemed unstable, like it could explode at any moment. With great effort, I wrapped my arm around Tucker and lifted him up onto his one good foot and together we hobbled backstage—where no one was left but us.

  We made it out the back exits only to be met with chaos: eighteen thousand concertgoers trying to escape. Cops were already there, moving people away from the arena, but it was still too early in the disaster to have triage stations set up or safe areas to huddle. You just had to keep moving and hope you survived.

  We were moving for a good ten minutes when we heard a familiar voice.

  “Tucker!” Evan called out, breathless and red-faced. Clearly he’d been running around the backlot searching for us. His eyes zeroed in on his father’s leg before he walked up to Tucker and threw an arm around him, hugging him tight.

  “Jess? Grace?” I asked.

  “Both fine, but dude, you’ve got some groveling to do. Jess is not happy with you… at all. Maybe chocolates might help. She thought you were following right behind. It took everything I had to keep her and Grace from going back.”

  I nodded, and the motion set my head swirling. I stumbled.

  “Evan, help me get him to the curb.”

  “No. I want to get to Jess. I’m good. Let’s go.”

  Tucker tried to get me to sit down, even suggesting Evan run ahead to get help, but my focus was on getting to Jess and Grace, and so I pushed through. The walk stole my breath, forcing me to stop several times along the way as each step became more strenuous. The adrenalin that had been pumping through me since finding the girls began to wane, and the heaviness returned. So did the pain.

  When we finally arrived at the outcrop building, I had to lean against the doorframe, so light-headed now that I could almost feel myself fading away. Evan knocked and identified himself. The door swung open, and out came the girls. Hands were on me, guiding me in. The black dots swarming my eyes returned, and I had trouble focusing on what was happening around me. I was lowered onto a chair.

  Jess’s hands were on my face, her focus solely on me. “He’s clammy. His skin’s so pale. Someone hand me a water bottle.”

  I could hear her talking, but the change in altitude from standing to sitting caused my head to revolve like a Tilt-a-Whirl.

  Grace crowded me from the other side, pulling down my collar in rescue mode. At least she’d found her strength again, I thought. She was going to need it for what was to come. “Is it the shoulder? I can’t tell.”

  Elliott didn’t wait to find out, instead ripping the material clean in half to reveal my bare, bloody skin.

  “It’s not in the shoulder,” Grace said. I could almost taste her fear. “Where’s the ambulance? Why aren’t they here yet?”

  I must have closed my eyes for a second because Jess was slapping me awake. “Quinn? Hey. Stay with me. Don’t you dare go anywhere.”

  “I won’t.”

  And then I was gone.

  When I opened my eyes, I was flat on my back, with both Jess and Grace inches from my face. They were talking to me, asking me questions, but their voices sounded so far away. Both girls looked as if they’d been dipped in blood. It was on their hands, their faces, their hair, their clothes. I blinked, trying to remember who was injured.

  Liftin
g a heavy hand, I touched a finger to Jess’s cheek.

  “It’s not mine,” she said, instantly understanding my concern. “You’ve been shot, Quinn. You’ve lost a lot of blood. Help is on the way.”

  I tried to sit up but was pushed back down by what seemed like a hundred hands. “Don’t move. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  That wasn’t what it sounded like. Jess looked horrified. Grace looked worse. Even sedate Elliott looked panic-stricken. Was this really it? Was this really how I was going to die?

  I grabbed Jess’s hand. “Kiss me.”

  “Quinn, I don’t think that’s…” She met my eye. Whatever she saw stopped her protest. Sweeping her hair to one side, Jess pressed shallow kisses to my lips.

  “My heart hurts.”

  Tears flooded her eyes. “I know, babe. Hang in there.”

  My eyes closed. She slapped my face. I opened my eyes.

  “Hey. I love you,” she said through more kissing sobs. “So much. You’re going to fight for me, right?”

  There was so much I wanted to say but didn’t have the breath for. “Yes.”

  “For me and Noah. For us. You’re going to fight for us.”

  “For us,” I agreed, struggling to keep my eyes open as I slid my thumb over her blood-tainted lips. So beautiful. “Marry me.”

  A sad smile formed. “Quinn, you can’t ask me that now.”

  Drawing whatever air I could into my lungs, I repeated, “Marry me, Jess.”

  I didn’t get my answer because seconds after it was asked, the EMTs arrived, instructing everyone to back away as they assessed the damage and came up with a hasty plan to keep me alive. Jess stepped back but positioned herself in my line of sight. Our eyes held, and the love in hers soothed me.

  She never looked away, even as I was lifted onto the stretcher and wheeled to the ambulance. And just as the doors were shutting, I implored her with my eyes. I needed an answer.

  “Yes,” she called to me. “I will marry you.”

  Now I had a reason to fight.

  32

  Jess: The Truth

  Michelle’s scream still reverberated through my ears. I could hear it through Grace’s phone, out of the receiver, across the room. It was the call every mother dreaded. No preparation. Those moments of panic and fear. Your child injured. Maybe dying. There was no information—and nothing, nothing you could do. My own terror took a backseat to hers as I imagined what it had to be like to get that call more than once. Michelle had. And now began her agonizing wait.

  By the time Grace, Elliott, Evan, and I were cleared to leave the area by police, the McKallisters had already begun arriving at the hospital. Grace had been in constant contact with Michelle, making her first call to her mother while we were in the outbuilding after running from the venue. Michelle knew every detail we did, but hearing what had happened over the phone was not the same as seeing the bloody evidence on our war-torn bodies when the four of us arrived in the waiting room. Michelle, and everyone else who loved Quinn, broke down.

  It took three very long and very tense hours to get word on Quinn’s fate. He’d survived the surgery, we’d been told, but just barely. This was no hero shot to the shoulder, as Quinn had suggested. Instead, he’d taken a direct hit to the chest. According to the surgeons who opened him up minutes after he arrived at the hospital, the bullet had narrowly missed his heart as it traveled through bone and muscle, lacerating a series of blood vessels before lodging in his lung.

  Slowly he bled, compressing the lung from the outside, causing shortness of breath and the compounding of blood loss. The slow drip explained how he’d been able to move around for so long without collapsing and how he’d managed to get me and Grace and Elliott and possibly hundreds of others out of the arena before passing out on that chair in the outbuilding. It even somewhat explained how he’d had the strength to stay on his feet while saving Tucker, only to come back and hastily ask for my hand in marriage.

  The proposal. Tears welled. Even him popping the question tonight was no cause for celebration. In fact, Quinn’s proposal nearly broke my heart. It was honest; that much I knew, but it was desperate, too. It felt like he was grasping for a life jacket seconds before his head submerged under the waves. Quinn didn’t really want to marry me. He just wanted to live.

  Upon hearing my silent cries, Evan lifted his head off the bench where he’d been sleeping beside me. Ever since his father had followed Quinn to the hospital in his own ambulance, the teenager hadn’t left my side. For all his confidence, Evan was still a kid… and a scared one at that. He swung his body up into a sitting position and rested his shoulder against mine.

  “He’s going to be okay, Jess.”

  I nodded, clinging to his optimism. Thank god for Evan, another outsider to lean on. Because for all the McKallisters’ kindness and support, they didn’t belong to me. They belonged to Quinn, and if he didn’t pull through, this waiting room might be the last place I ever saw them. A wave of emotion overwhelmed me when I tried to imagine life without Quinn.

  Enough with the negative thoughts.

  “Distract me,” I said.

  Evan’s eyes rose to the ceiling as he searched his brain for something worthy of my request. “Okay. Sometimes when I eat Doritos, I check to see what side has more flavor, and I lay that side facedown on my tongue.”

  Distraction complete. I chuckled. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Hey, you asked.” He grinned. “Your turn.”

  “I separate my M&M’s and eat my least favorite color first. And then second to last. You get the idea.”

  He didn’t even let me finish before replying, “Psycho.”

  See, I was already feeling more positive. Good for Evan.

  “Okay, here’s a good one,” he said, lowering his voice. “Tucker’s not really my father… not Bodhi’s, either. And I don’t know what I’m going to do if he doesn’t make it.”

  I knew nothing about this boy, but I felt an overwhelming kinship to him after what we’d been through together. “Hey. Tucker would never let a bullet wound slow him down.”

  Evan nodded, clearly not convinced but still allowing my words to soothe.

  “Is he your stepdad?” I asked.

  There was no emotion in his curt laugh. “No, that would require a mother.”

  “So, who is Tucker to you, then?”

  There was a long pause as Evan considered his response.

  “The only person who ever cared.”

  Evan and I never got to finish the conversation because seconds after his confession, a doctor came for him, delivering the news of Tucker’s successful surgery and whisking him away to his not-father’s room.

  But for the rest of us, there would be no whisking away— at least not yet. Quinn’s condition was precarious enough that Michelle and Scott had been summoned to the Cardiothoracic ICU hours earlier, their infrequent texts our only connection to the man we all loved.

  To their immense credit, the McKallister siblings, led by openhearted Grace, had not left me hanging. Despite what they’d all surely heard about me in the earlier hours of the day, none of them seemed to hold it against me. They welcomed me into their bubble, held my hand, comforted me when I cried. If I only took one thing out of this horrible experience, it would be an understanding of the humanity of this family, who despite their own vast sufferings, had found it in their hearts to tend to mine.

  Michelle and Scott arrived back in the waiting room hours later, looking exhausted but relieved. They had the news we’d all been waiting for.

  “Quinn has stabilized,” Michelle announced. “The surgeons think he’s going to make a full recovery.”

  The cheers that erupted could surely be heard from the street below.

  “And get this.” Scott’s pride shone through. “He’s awake and talking.”

  “Of course he’s talking,” Jake said, the relief evident on his tired face. “When does Quinn not get the last word?”

  Hours pas
sed. As we waited for updates on Quinn’s continued recovery, answers began trickling in about the shooting. Names. Faces. The victims. The shooter. But the thing I clung to—what I took some bizarre solace in—was the fact that Quinn and Sketch Monsters had not been specifically targeted. They’d just had the extraordinary misfortune of being in the wrong place at the very worst time.

  “I hear you’re engaged,” Michelle said, sliding into the chair beside me.

  The half-hearted smile I offered up fooled no one. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold him to it.”

  “I hope you do.”

  I couldn’t keep my jaw from dropping. She approved of Quinn’s deathbed proposal?

  “Is that so hard for you to believe?” she asked.

  “A little,” I admitted. “Especially after what my ex unleashed on the internet. It’s hard to believe that you would be okay with your youngest son dating a single mom with a less-than-stellar past.”

  Michelle was slow with her response. “You know, I once fell for a single father with a less-than-stellar past. Star-crossed lovers, I guess you could say. I was from a very wealthy and connected family. Scott was not. I’d never known anyone like him. He was unrefined, vulgar, funny… everything I wasn’t. Everything my family wasn’t. Yet he was real and raw and exciting. I fell so hard. My parents—not so much. They fought our love every step of the way. Not only did they hate that he had a baby son, but also they didn’t think Scott was smart enough, rich enough, or connected enough to provide for me. Without going into detail, it got very ugly, and I was forced to make a choice no one should ever have to make.”

  “Your heart or your family,” I guessed.

  She nodded, glancing around the room. “I chose my heart and then built myself a new family. I’ve never regretted it. In fact, I pity my parents. Think of all these wonderful kids they lost out on knowing. And for what? I swore I would never do that to my own children. Quinn loves you. He loves Noah. I’ve seen such a change in him. With you, he doesn’t seem lost anymore. You make him happy, and that, in turn, makes me happy. So, when I say I hope you hold him to his proposal, Jess, those aren’t empty words.”