The paramedics took over.
‘Come on. We’re going to let them work and then we’ll meet them at the hospital.’
‘I’m staying.’ Nina’s tone was resolute. The numbness spreading throughout her body momentarily retracted as the heat of her rage warded it off. ‘I’m staying with him,’ she repeated.
‘GSW to abdomen,’ the paramedic said calmly. ‘Haemorrhaging from truncal trauma. We need to get him to the ambulance, apply a haemostatic to try and reduce blood loss for transport.’
They rolled Mav onto their stretcher as if he were a child, not a grown six-four man.
‘Where are you taking him?’ Nina asked.
They didn’t reply, only moved past her, calmly carrying her heart on their stretcher as if he were just another day on the job.
‘Ms Keller.’ The sheriff tried to stop her from following, but when Nina only shook him off and hurried after Mav, he followed. ‘Ms Keller, we’ll follow them. But there’s nothing you can do for him.’ When she didn’t stop – couldn’t stop – he caught her wrist in his hand, gently pulled her up short. ‘I know this is hard to hear, but you have to let them work. You’ll only get in the way and distract them.’
‘What do I do?’ she asked as a sob tore from her throat. ‘What the hell do I do?’
And he didn’t lie to her. He said, ‘Pray.’
Chapter 32
Nearly six hours later, Sierra sat next to Nina in one of the chairs in the hospital waiting room. Poppy had cried herself to sleep on her lap. Markus, who had left LA the moment Sierra had let him know what had happened, sat with Juan on Nina’s other side. They were all eerily silent, too scared to make idle conversation, too exhausted to care.
Nina was still covered in blood, in Mav’s blood, because in the chaos nobody had thought to find her clean clothes. She was pale, her big eyes smudged with fatigue. Sierra didn’t think she’d spoken a word since they’d arrived.
Sierra almost hadn’t believed it when the front gate had called her to say that the police were responding to a 911 call from the ranch house. She hadn’t thought. She’d grabbed Poppy and shouted for José to give her a ride. They’d reached the house in minutes, just in time to see Alexander Cane loaded into an ambulance, his face beaten and bloody.
When she’d asked a deputy what had happened, he’d only said that Mav had been hurt and that the sheriff had driven Nina to the hospital so that she could stay with him.
Sierra had followed straight away. She had called Markus. But it had only been when she’d arrived and spoken to the sheriff that she’d found out that Mav had been shot.
Shot.
Her big brother, so strong and infallible … Shot.
Had she not had hours to come to terms with it, she still might not have believed it.
She’d called Benji without thinking because he would come. Mav needed him.Sheneeded him.
And, still, if there was one thing Sierra was very, very good at, it was turning off. She didn’t cry or rant, though both were threatening. She simply went numb. She felt nothing, only stared blankly at the white wall in front of her.
Another hour passed.
A doctor came out. Nina shot upright in her chair. But he circumvented their little group with an apologetic smile and made his way to a family sitting on the opposite side of the room.
Next to her, Nina collapsed back in on herself.
‘I’m sure we’ll know how he is soon,’ Sierra said, sensing that Nina was on the edge of her threshold. ‘Surgeons don’t spend this long working on dead people.’
Nina released a warbled sob at that. She spoke for the first time, and she said, ‘He jumped in front of that bullet for me. He …’ Nina had to pause and breathe through her sobs. ‘He took the bullet for me, Si.’ She buried her head in her hands. ‘Oh, God. What have I done?’
Sierra’s heart broke. She had no doubts that Mav had jumped in front of a literal bullet; it was who he was. But because she knew the fear and confusion Nina must be feeling just then, she replied, ‘You’ve given my brother everything he ever wanted, Nina. Don’t diminish what he did for you with misplaced guilt.’
‘Amen,’ Markus said quietly, and took Nina’s blood-stained hand in his.
The doors opened again, but this time it was Benji who ran in, his shirt damp with sweat, his eyes crazed and bloodshot. He stopped when their eyes met, said, ‘Sierra?’
‘We’re still waiting,’ she replied, knowing everything he wanted to know from only her name on his lips.
