“Someone please!” I yelled as loud as I could. My throat was raw, my voice breaking on the last word.
Looking around, my eye caught sight of Bertie. She didn't appear hurt, but she was running toward me, her chest heaving with great wracking sobs. Her little face was streaked with tears, twisted in fear no child should ever know.Fuck please don't let it be Billy.
“Uncle Wilder,” she screamed. “Where's Daddy. I need Daddy. Momma is hurt.” As soon as she saw Tally lying on the floor, bleeding and broken, she pulled up short, her eyes wide with the terror of the scene in front of her. She made a small, wounded sound, like a puppy kicked too hard.
“What happened Bertie girl,” I managed to get out. “How is she hurt?” Please God don't let Lily be the victim of the bull, too. “Tell me sweetness.”
“He hurt her,” she sobbed. “He pulled her out of the truck and she's on the ground. Her face is bleeding and she's just lying there. What happened to Tally ho?” Her voice climbed higher with each word, hysteria threatening.
“She's going to be fine. Daddy is on his way here.” My hands were covered in her blood and my shirt soaked through. The fabric clung to my chest, sticky and cold despite the heat of the day.I was shaking so hard I could barely keep pressure on her wounds. My arms burned with the effort, muscles screaming.
At that very second my brother came around running down the hill, his legs pumping like he was racing for a gold medal. As soon as he saw Bertie, he called out to her.
“Tally is going to be okay, Munchkin. I promise.”
“Daddy it's Momma. She's hurt.”
My brother’s face paled, like he was the one who'd been gored by a bull. His expression went slack with shock, then hardened into something dangerous.
“Go to her Nash.” I got this. “Some guy ran past me, and I think he stole Lily's truck.”
“It was Glenn, Daddy,” Bertie cried running toward Nash, her arms open wide. “Glenn was the man.”
My heart stopped and as the nausea rose it all clicked into place. The pieces fell together with sickening clarity, each little oddity suddenly making terrible sense. The messages, the cabin break-in, all of it. We'd been right about him. He'd been here all the time.
Nash's jaw clenched as he picked up his daughter. His arms tightened around her protectively, his whole body radiating fury.“We'll get him Wild. I'll get someone to come to you. Hold tight.”
As I waited alone, pleading and praying that my beautiful girl survived I wondered who wanted to kill that piece of shit more. Me or my brother. The only comfort I got was that I could hear Petey's bellowing getting farther away, sounding like he was heading toward the creek. The sound echoed across the valley, mournful and distant.
Tally's breathing suddenly changed. It sounded shallower and her lips seemed blue. A thin rim of purple traced her mouth, spreading like frost. “No, no, no. Stay with me, Brownie. Don't you dare leave me now.” I moved my head closer to hers, desperate to hear her breathing. Her breath barely stirred the air between us, fading like a whisper.“I won't accept anything but you fighting this. Okay. You fight, okay, because I won't lose you. I can't.” I inhaled, ragged and broken. My chest hitched, tears finally breaking free, hot against my cheeks.“I love you, baby, so damn much.” The words tore out of me, confession and prayer all at once.
“We've got a female, age twenty-five, trampled by a bull,” the lead paramedic called to his partner as they worked. His voice was clinical, professional, reducing Tally to a set of injuries and I wanted to scream at him to call her by her name. She was Tally. My Tally. “Possible internal bleeding from side lacerations, definite compound fracture to the left arm, multiplelacerations to left leg.”
It felt like I was watching a movie, or maybe I was on another plane, looking down on everything. The colors seemed too bright, the sounds too sharp and too muffled all at once. Whatever it was, it didn't feel real. My body was here but my mind had disconnected, floating somewhere above the carnage. This wasn't happening to me. To her.
“BP's dropping,” the second medic replied, checking her vitals. “Ninety over sixty and falling.” The numbers meant nothing and everything. I didn't understand them but I heard the urgency beneath his calm.
“Sir, I need you to step back,” the first paramedic said firmly to me. His hand came up, a gentle barrier between me and Tally.“What's her name?”
Cassidy took my arm and led me back a pace, her touch bringing me back to reality. Her fingers were steady where mine trembled, anchoring me when I wanted to float away. Waking me to the nightmare. She'd arrived minutes after Nash left, armed with towels to try and stem Tally's bleeding but the horror in her expression told me she thought it might be hopeless. I'd seen that look before, the one people got when they were watching something die.I wanted to yell at her that it was a lie; to demand she take back the unspoken words, but I couldn't. My throat had closed the words trapped behind the weight of terror.I didn't know how to.
“Tally. Tally Brown.” My voice cracked on her name. It came out broken, barely recognizable as my own.“Tallulah but she prefers Tally.” Even now, even like this, I needed them to know her, to see her as a person and not just a body.
“Tally, can you hear me? I'm Jake, and we're going to take good care of you.” He looked up at me. His eyes were kind but guarded, already preparing me for the worst without saying it. “Any allergies? Medical conditions we should know about?”
“N-no, nothing. S-she's... she's going to be o-k-kay, right?” My teeth chattered despite the heat, shock setting in with icy claws.Shivering I was barely able to get the words out through lips that felt numb and foreign.
“We're going to do everything we can. Which hospital do you want us to take her to?” He didn't promise. He didn't lie. Somehow that made it worse.
“Nearest trauma center,” I managed. The words tasted like ash.
“That's Regional Medical. Are you riding with us?”
I nodded, unable to speak as they loaded her stretcher into the ambulance. The wheels rattled against the metal floor, each bump making me flinch, imagining her pain.
“Go.” Cassidy ushered me forward. Her hand pressed between my shoulder blades, propelling me when my legs wouldn't move. “Nash took Lily in my car so you might see him there. I'll let everyone else know.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears.
“The bull,” I muttered. The words came automatically; ranch safety drilled into me since childhood.“You need to be careful, Cass.”
