It was a fun run. Normally, this should be the part where I regretted the life choices that led me down this road, cursed and bitched and moaned at whatever all-powerful deity cursed me to suffer a fate like this. But for some reason, I couldn’t find it in me to actually care.
My life insurance payout would take care of my sister for at least the next couple of years, maybe even a few more than that if she pinched her pennies carefully. Long enough until Ainsley was in school and she could get a job that paid well.
I hoped my sister stayed happy. She deserved it after everything she’d been forced to go through as a kid. After everything our stepdad put us through.
In the end, we’d escaped him and were better off for it.
As my body began to hemorrhage, a sense of morbid humor struck me.
How funny that I’d die in the way I hated most: cold.
CHAPTER 3
Silas
“They said it’s bad.”A breathy exhale coupled with a pair of wringing hands. Blue gloves covering them snapped softly from the motion. Beats in five-step intervals. “Two down with multiple fatal wounds. One’s already coded in transit.”
“Did they say what it was?” There was a slight curiosity to her panicked tone. “All they called for was a code red for two incoming patients.”
“I was listening to the police scanner on my lunch?—”
Illegal.
“—shots were fired over in Edgewood. Three police units responded to it.”
“Shots fired?” Disbelief. Panic. A morally righteous pull to her wrinkled features.
“That’s what I heard.”
“Edgewood is supposed to be safe?—”
A misguided view. Naive.
Only children dealt in absolutes and black and white thinking.
The world was a dangerous place no matter how far out into the woods you ran.
“What was the call about originally?”
“I didn’t catch it before that.” She sighed. “Just when things went haywire. Then we got the call to be prepared for their arrival.”
Fifteen minutes, forty seven seconds, and counting.
“Damn…” Another sigh.
One already coded in transit. Resuscitation successful. Intubation initiated. Wounds packed.
Fatal injuries to both.
Potentially, the reminder came. Not an absolute.
Not yet.
“We should see where they’re at, right, Dr. Montgomery?”
My gaze snapped to the left, drawn away from the automatic doors of the ambulance drop off for a split second to connect with Violet’s.
After a beat of silence, she repeated, “We should call dispatch for an ETA.”
