“You can’t leave,” Willow sobs, pressing against the blood, “I can’t do this on my own.”
I pause, “Yes, you can.”
She swallows, fat tears running down her cheeks.
“You can,” I wheeze, “You can do this.”
“I need to phone an ambulance.” She whispers, voice thick with emotion. Her face is twisted in terror, eyes neon from her tears and there’s blood on her shirt. I glance to where she still has one hand pressed against the wound to see her hand stained with blood. Stained just like mine. It mars her pretty skin, taints it, the violence, the brutality scarring her beautiful soul.
I want to push it off, to take her hand and wipe it clean but I can’t. I have no strength, I feel it seeping out of me, drop by drop onto the concrete floor beneath my body.
Willow is speaking into the phone, but I don’t hearher words, I just watch her, taking in her wild red hair and the freckles on her face. My woman.
My red.
“I – I–” My throat burns, and I taste the metallic tinge of blood touch my tongue as I force the words out. “I love you.” I manage to wheeze.
Her eyes widen and she begins to speak quicker before she pulls the phone away from her ear, hits a button and lays it down on the ground beside her so she can apply both hands back to the knife wound.
I don’t feel it anymore. It doesn’t hurt anymore but breathing is becoming really hard, like I have an elastic band around my lungs, constricting them. I can’t fucking breathe.
“You’re going to be an amazing mother,” I stutter out between short, labored breaths, “Our baby is going to be just like you.”
“Bast, baby,” Willow sobs, “Please.”
“I’m sad I don’t know what we are having,” I whisper, “I think I’d like a girl.”
The sob that cracks from her breaks my damn heart.
“Don’t leave me, Bast,” Willow begs, “They’re coming. The paramedics are coming. Please just hold on.”
“Okay,” I promise but it’ll be a promise I’ll break because I can feel myself slipping. It’s right there, edging in at the sides of my consciousness, this ominousblack cloud slowly creeping forward. I thought death would be a little more… destructive.
Fire and brimstone maybe?
This is actually peaceful. The pain isn’t there, I have my woman, I’m warm, and knowing she is safe helps.
I lift my hand, weak and trembling, and press my palm to her cheek, leaving a red stain behind.
I don’t manage any more words, and my strength leaves me as that black fog completely takes over and the last thing I hear before I let it completely take me is Willow scream as she calls my name.
Chapter Forty
The last time I rode in an ambulance I was in fifth grade. Me and Olivia were climbing trees in a park by her father’s hotel, and I fell, falling about ten feet. I broke my collar bone and wrist and some nice lady from the park found us. She sat with me, stroking my arm so delicately and comforted Olivia while she cried next to us until the ambulance came. We didn’t know how to contact our parents, not that I would have wanted to contact mine.
But the ambulance came, and they put us in the back, and we rode to the hospital.
It wasn’t as scary as I thought it was going to be. But that changes now. Now the paramedics are desperately trying to save someone’s life, someone I love, and there’s so much blood. It’s all overme, my skin, my clothes, even my hair and they’re speaking in terms I don’t understand. Sebastian isn’t awake, he’s just lying there, bleeding all over the sheets and bed. His usually tan skin is pale, even his blond hair looks dull.
I can’t lose him. I just can’t.
There’s this yawning pit of darkness attempting to suck me down. The despair is crippling and yet my legs keep moving and I keep watching, this ball of anxiety and grief only growing bigger and bigger, its claws sinking into my skin. From the outside, I don’t speak or ask questions, I watch helplessly from the sidelines but inside, I am screaming. Screaming so loud it deafens me.
It feels like forever and no time at all by the time the ambulance stops at the hospital and then I’m left behind as he is rushed ahead. I stand in a quiet hallway of the hospital, staring at the doors still swinging from where he’s been pushed through them on a gurney.
Everything feels cold. How was it an hour ago we were unloading furniture for our baby and now we are here?
It’s wrong.It’s all wrong.
