“We’re going to go to the police for an emergency restraining order. Then we’ll go to The Yard to have lunch, and I am going to let you know what we’re going to do with this situation because I have a plan.”
I just nodded at him. Donovan had the brilliant idea of bringing a sample of Theo’s handwriting to the station with us. Hopefully, that was enough to prove that Theo had been behind everything. In a box in my closet, I found some cards he had written to me, so I threw those in the envelope before we left.
The officers at the police station were incredibly kind, sympathetic, and helpful, but it felt, I don’t know, like not enough. I was sure the restraining order was going to go over brilliantly. Especially for a man like Theo, an entitled prick who felt like the world should bow down to him.
When we sat down at lunch, Murphy was behind the bar while Jules was on a barstool. Even from afar, I could see the flirtation between them. She was carrying on like someone else hadn’t been wrecking her body less than 24 hours ago.What are you doing, Juliette?I wondered. Donovan and I took a high boy farthest away from the bar because there was something on a TV he wanted to see. We motioned for them to join us. Filling them in on the envelope, they were both seeing red, too.
“Let’s fucking run him out of town. Let’s publish his fucking antics in the paper and start spreading the word. Even just making a couple of posters and hanging them around Main should do the trick. I guarantee you some vigilante justice takes over,” Jules suggested. “Or I could meet him in a dark alley.”
“You’re not meeting anyone in an alley, you fool,” Murphy laughed.
Jules rolled her eyes. “Fine, but I am going to go to the bathroom,” she laughed indignantly as she got up.
“Your food should be ready, too. I’ll grab it, JuJu. Donovan, can you help with the drinks?” Everyone got up, leaving me at the table.
I was looking at my phone when Theo unexpectedly came storming up to me. First, I looked to see if anyone had noticed, which they hadn’t, but when I looked him in his eyes, I lost my voice.This wasn’t him. This wasn’t the man that I had loved and talked about my future with. His eyes were dark, detached, and full of hatred.
Before I could shout for help or tell him he had to stay a hundred yards away from me, he grabbed me by the back of my neck and spoke with a low, menacing growl into my ear. Caught in a moment of terror, I froze.
“You’re mine, Audra. I’ll never let you be anyone else’s. Mine. The bricks were the final warning, and you didn’t listen. You chose New York instead, you whore. You could have been mine.”
And with that, he pulled out a knife from the waistband of his pants and plunged it into the side of my stomach. I gasped as I heard the commotion of people shouting. A shockwave of pain exploded in my body, while I tried to stand up from the table, gripping my side. His hand moved from my neck to my hair to control me.
“Theo, please! You loved me. We were going to get married,” I begged, still reeling from shock. I tried to escape, but he yanked my hair so hard my head snapped back and tears burned in my eyes. He raised the knife, this time above his head, to come down on me.
“Stop, Theo!” I shouted finally finding my voice, but closed my eyes to brace for it, accepting the fate because I couldn’t break from his grasp. The sound of stools falling and Donovan yelling opened my eyes. I watched him tackle Theo and let out a roar, but the knife that was going to kill me went in and out of Donovan’s chest instead, as they tumbled to the floor. Donovan ended up straddling Theo’s body and punched him with such force that he completely knocked him out. Blood from Theo’s nose spurt everywhere. Donovan tried to stand up with a heaving chest, but fell to his knees almost immediately, as his fingers touched his chest and he gasped for breath. Murphy went over to flip Theo on his stomach and put a knee in his back, while he shouted for people to call 9-1-1.
Dropping down, I looked Donovan in his eyes. He looked lost and stunned, like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Pulling him all the way down, I lay him so he would be on his back with his head in my lap, but he was struggling to breathe. I looked at the blood coming from his chest. There wasn’t a lot, but I knew how bad it was. My adrenaline took over completely, and I no longer felt my pain. The location where he got stabbed could mean a multitude of different things, none of them good. I tried covering the wound with my hand, but when I saw bubbles at the stab site, I realized it was even worse than I thought. I’d only seen a sucking chest wound once, and that was when I was first starting out in the hospital.
“Help me!” I shouted into the bar as everyone stood, paralyzed. “Someone get towels! I need the first aid kit now!”
Juliette, who had been in the bathroom for less than three minutes, came out to the whole scene, and sprang right into action. The bartender met her, dumped the kit and a bunch of towels in her arms, and she ran back at breakneck speed.
“Put your hand over it. Stop the air,” I bumbled out as sheknelt next to us. She put her hand over the top of the wound and tried to cover it. Although the blood wasn’t gushing, it was still seeping through her fingers.
Donovan's chest made a sickening hissing sound.
“It’s bubbling, Audra. What’s happening? What’s that sound?” Jules gasped with panic lacing her raising voice.
“Please, Jules. Just keep it there,” I begged as I dumped the contents of the kit on the floor and found what I was looking for—a chest seal. The twins had asked for advice a year ago about what to stock that was above and beyond a standard first-aid, and I suggested having a few of these chest seals, a tourniquet, combat gauze, and an airway kit. I remember telling them it’s worst-case scenario stuff, and they’d probably never have to use it, but that it was fine because these would never expire. Oh, the irony.
“I … I can’t do this,” she stuttered as the tears streamed down her face, and she pulled her hand up.
“Please help me, Juliette. Help Donovan,” my voice broke. “We need to save him,” I pleaded desperately as I worked to open the chest seal.
It was harder than it should have been because of all the blood on my hands. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the terror that had her frozen in fear. But Donovan’s shallow breaths pulled my attention away. This was too overwhelming. I couldn’t manage both of them.
“JuJu,” came another voice. It was Murphy who was still holding a mostly unconscious Theo down. “Juliette Juniper, look at me.”
She tore her gaze from me to look at him.
“You can. You can do this, love,” he spoke gently and nodded his head yes at her. “You can do anything. Just listen towhat Audra says. Hold it like you hold your hand over my mouth when you want me to stop talking.”
Whatever that meant, it broke Juliette out of her trance, and she nodded her head yes, then she put her hand back over the wound.
“That’s it, Jules,” I encouraged her. “You’re doing great. I need to put this on him now. We’ll work together, okay?”
I wiped as much blood away as I could around where she was applying pressure. “Ok, lift up, Jules,” and she did. I gave the area a quick swipe with the towel, knowing it wasn’t going to do too much, but the priority was getting the seal on. I applied it, and I changed my focus to Donovan.
