“Relax. Don’t tighten up. Tensing causes?—”
“I got it,” he forced, teeth gritted.
Okay. “We can’t remove the knife, baby. When impaled, the item must stay in place, or we risk catastrophic bleeding and damage?—”
“Don’t do that to me.” He barked the words, laughing, as we kneeled in a pool of his warm blood.
“What?” I wiped away a tear. Crying again. I’d only cried after my first foster placement change, and I’d bounced around a lot. Cried during labor.
Cried when trying to get my baby and me out of the hospital, which was practically owned by Edwin.
Cried when that man almost stole Darius.
My baby was my heart.
Now, Montana had found his way inside.
Minutes later, I stumbled onto Royal Street, tears streaking my cheeks, as I held Montana’s hand. He lay on a gurney.
Frost clung to the night air, and jazz spilled faintly from some bar down the block, but all Montana’s breaths rasped. EMTs cut his shirt. Blood created tiny pools on his perfect abdomen. Metal wheels rattled over uneven pavement.
“Stab wound along the posterior rib,” I said, although nobody asked. “Likely the ninth or tenth rib. Entry depth about seven inches, based on blade length of approximately ten.” My voice trembled, even as I tried to maintain my clinical background and stoic demeanor. “Possible contact with spleen.”
The medic’s eyes flicked to me in surprise, then at his partners. “Load him. Now.”
In the ambulance, it should’ve been me sliding an oxygen mask over Montana’s face, hooking up an IV, rattling off meds.Yeah, right. I was a mess. Montana squeezed my hand. His blood connected us in a way I never imagined, and he sensed my fear of losing this small contact.
But he’d release me at the hospital. Had to. Maybe it wouldn’t sting as badly as my first caregiver switch, when heartbreak was raw and new.
At the hospital, nurses swarmed him in a blur of blue scrubs and clipped voices. One of them rounded on me, just as Montana muttered something in Creole.
“What’s he saying?” I asked as she ordered me to step back. His voice rooted me to the spot, his saying my name, a low rumble of passion and Creole. “Please tell me what he said?”
“Step back!” she growled.
“Trust me, I know.” If she weren’t so rude, I’d apologize. Maybe explain that this painwasdeeper than leaving the only foster home I knew and loved at age six. Not that I needed to be my awkward self now. My blood-slick hands rose in surrender, every fingerprint stained red. My knees bore the same stains, the price of kneeling with him. I’d prayed for him, even though I sucked at it.
I shoved one hand through my wig, and it snatched back. “Damn!” I pushed it in place and dialed Virginia. No answer. Called again. Nothing. Thirty minutes blurred by in a fog of disinfectant and cold tile. A racking cough came from someone who’d wait forever in the ER lobby if other, more critical, patients kept coming in.
Tennessee called me. Cartoons buzzed from my tiny studio as his deep voice steadied me in the way I needed. Hell, he should’ve freaked out over his big brother.
Sometime later, two uniformed cops came to let me know they’d cordoned off HC&PP, and I provided my statement. Not that I’d provided a good description of the boys.Maybe they’d find them, maybe not …
Or NYPD will cuff you, and Edwin will steal what he never wanted.
“Journey?” Virginia burst into the waiting area, her hair wild, chest rising and falling with every frantic breath. “…garçon…fé mal?” Her voice cracked, Creole pouring out like a wail.
I blinked.
“Is my son hurt?”
I managed a nod, anxiety twisting my throat. “No word yet. If the knife didn’t pierce his spleen, the surgery might take two hours. If it did?—”
Virginia shook her head hard, cutting me off. “Sugar, don’t you dare say it.”
I shut my mouth, pressed my bloodied hands into my lap, andtapped my feet against the polished floor. Because if Montana didn’t make it off the operating table, nothing would matter.
Even if he did … I needed to run. Truth’s weight crashed into me all at once. Compassion, fear, guilt—and for the first time, I didn’t know which would break me faster: losing Montana tonight or leaving him before tomorrow came.
