I found the trunk release and hustled around to the back and threw open the trunk. To my relief, Vivian was lying there, unharmed, but mad as a hornet. I helped her out of the trunk and to her feet. Fortunately, her feet weren’t bound, but the duct tape in her hair was awful. I was able to peel the edges away from her mouth far enough to get rid of the rags my Dad had used to secure it and let her speak, but I wasn’t able to get her hair untangled from the sticky mess.
“Nicki!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around me once I got her hands released. “Are you okay? What happened? Where’s your dad?”
“Kaine’s got him under control,” I reassured her. “The police are on their way. He’s in the living room.”
We walked back into the apartment, where Kaine was still keeping pressure on his head wound and my father still lay, unmoving. Vivian went in the bathroom to try and free her hair, and I went to check on Kaine.
“He’s still breathing,” Kaine reassured me when I walked over to him.
“I don’t really care about him. How areyoudoing?” I asked as I forced him to take a seat. He looked up at me and winced as I pulled the towel away from his head to get a look at the cut.
“It’s starting to hurt more, now that the adrenaline is wearing off,” he admitted.
“Yeah, and it’s still bleeding. As soon as the cops get here, we should probably take you to the ER to get it stitched up,” I said, pressing the makeshift bandage back against the wound.
“Myhair’sgonna need an ER visit!” Vivian called as she walked out of bathroom. “I had to cut it to—shit, Nicki!Lookout!” she called, her eyes widening in alarm.
At the same time, I heard Micah’s voice yell,“AkronPolice! Drop the weapon!”
It was one of those moments you see in movies, when everything seems to move in slow motion. I spun around, catching a glimpse of the detective standing in the open doorway, his weapon raised. Behind Kaine, I saw my father rising up off the floor like some kind of horror movie villain, hunting knife in hand. Without thought, I shoved Kaine to the ground, putting myself between him and my father.
Dad’s right arm wrapped around me, his face an angry snarl. I felt him punch my side over and over and felt a strange tugging, tearing sensation in my belly button as we locked gazes. His eyes were bloodshot and enraged, his lips pulled back from his teeth as he thrust his knife into my side.
Then a gunshot exploded in the apartment and my Dad flew backward, the knife he’d held in his hand spinning off into the air.
After that, nothing seemed to make sense. I was worried that the knife would break something when it landed or get stuck in the wall. I’d seen blood on the edge. How would I ever explain that to the landlord? “Oh yeah! That was the time my dad tried to kill me…” It bothered me for some reason that there was blood on the blade, but I couldn’t seem to think why…
Then something seemed to pop, and everything sped back up and became a blur of sound and lights and people.
“Nicki?Nicki!” I heard Kaine scream my name as he scrambled to his feet. I tried to reassure him, because he soundedsofrightened, but nothing seemed to come out. I tried to clear my throat as my legs suddenly got super heavy and coughed into my hand. I was alarmed when I pulled it away from my mouth and saw blood spattered across it.
Blood? There was something about blood I was always supposed to remember. I stared at my hand in confusion, the watery red spittle revolting as it dribbled down my wrist and over the plus sign tattooed on my wrist.
Plus sign. Positive. Shit! Myblood! I couldn’t let anyone touch my blood!
I tried to push Kaine away from me, but all the strength seemed to drain out of my legs at once. I fell to my knees as activity exploded around me. My ears were still ringing with the sounds of the gunshots. I blinked, and suddenly it seemed like we had dozens of people in the room.
“Hold on, Nicki! The ambulance is almost here,” Kaine reassured me. Why was he reassuring me? Why was I lying on the ground? When had that happened? I could see Vivian in the kitchen, her hands covering her mouth as tears streaked down her cheeks.
“Wh-what…” I managed to get out, as I tried to ask why she was crying, but the more I tried to talk, the more I felt like I was choking. Vivian shouldn’t cry. Vivian was wonderful.
“Just be quiet, Nicki, it’s going to be okay,” I heard Micah saying as he lifted my feet up onto the coffee table. Vivian didn’t like feet on the coffee table. I tried to tell him so, but nothing came out but a few gurgling gasps.
Where was Kaine? He was here just a second ago, but I had blinked, and he had disappeared. That scared me more than anything else, more than the gunshots, more than the blood. Kaine would never leave me. I looked around the room wildly. Kaine should behere, right? He belonged with me.
Then I saw him sprinting back to the room and he knelt down beside me, pressing some bath towels against my stomach. That hurt enough for me to cry out and crying out made me start coughing again.
My head began to swim, the dizziness almost too much.
“Stay with me, Nicki!Please, God, don’t leave me!” I heard Kaine whisper into my ear. I felt something warm and wet land in my ear. I hated getting water in my ears. I tried to tell Kaine I wasn’t going anywhere, and that he needed to stop crying in my ears, but suddenly my head was too heavy to move. My sudden weakness left my head lying to the side, line of sight giving me a view past where Kaine knelt next to me, and directly at the side of my father’s head. Right where the bullet had entered it.
I tried to reassure Kaine that I would never leave him, not ever... but then everything went dark.
20
Kaine
My family had been spending entirely toomuch time in hospitals lately.
