Chapter fifty-one
PURE INSTINCT
Threethingshappeninsuch rapid succession that if adrenaline weren’t in play, the sequence of them would be impossible to distinguish from one another.
First, I sprint towards Leah as a last-ditch effort to save Cameron’s life. This time, I don’t call out Leah’s name, though. Instead, I yell the name Madeline.
Next, Leah pulls the slack out of the trigger, and in that same millisecond, whips her head back in my direction as a knee-jerk reaction to hearing her real name said out loud.
Third, the shot breaks, sending a bullet straight into Jalen’s hotel room, and blows my and everyone else’s hearing out with the sound of it in the confined space.
I am on her in the next second without a single shred of concern for my own safety and slam her against the wall outside of the hotel room door just as a body crashes to the floor with a loud thud. Without anyone to hold the door open, it starts to close but gets hung up on a pair of feet.
I scream, crazed out of my mind with terror that Cameron’s dead body might be lying within inches of where I stand, but when I cry out his name in a strangled sob, the door flies back open. He appears a second later, takes one look at where I have Leah pinned against the wall, and jumps forward to wrench the gun out of her hand.
“Oh my God, Cameron. You’re alive!” I sob, as I move aside to let him take over with restraining her, and not a second too soon, because I was starting to lose my grip.
His face is deathly serious as he gives me a quick once-over to make sure I am uninjured and then easily pins her with one arm against the wall and holds out the gun to me with the other. “Take this so that she can’t use it again, then go help Jalen.”
I do as I am told, careful to keep my finger far away from the trigger and rush inside the hotel room. The second I see Jalen, I nearly pass out at the sight of his still body on the floor with an expanding pool of blood staining the carpet below him.
“Jalen!” I cry. My vision starts to go dark at the edges as I drop the gun on the nearest table, then fall on my knees next to him.
I cover the hole in his shoulder that is actively leaking blood with both of my hands, and he groans in pain as I apply pressure. The sound offers me just enough relief to pull me back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack, and I shift into crisis mode instead.
“Call 9-1-1, Drew,” Cameron reminds me from the hallway, raising his voice to be heard through the cracked door and over the sounds of Leah’s fury as she fights against him. “Jalen needs to get to a hos—.”
“He’ll never make it,” Madeline, the woman pretending to be Leah, says between fits of rage. “And watching while he slowly dies is exactly what you deserve for what you did to me and my family.”
Her hateful words light a fire in me. I remove my shaking hands from Jalen’s gunshot wound to call for help, but panic digs its claws back in when his blood flows up out of the wound faster than before. I struggle to dial the numbers with Jalen’s warm blood smeared all over the screen, and the wrap around my thumb has acted like a sponge. I yank it off and wipe my hands and phone with my sweater so that I can finally call for help.
The second the line connects, I hit the speaker button and set it on the carpet next to us so that I can resume applying pressure to Jalen’s shoulder. I yell the information about where we are and what happened at the phone, but keep my attention solely on Jalen’s face, which becomes more ashen with every passing second.
I grit my teeth to try and block out the confrontation that continues outside the door, because I can’t stand to hear the vitriol she directs at the man that I have completely fallen for. I don’t know how Cameron is able to maintain his composure while she is screaming the most despicable things in his face, with his brother just feet away, knocking on death’s door. As irate as I am right now, I don’t think I would be able to exercise as much self-control.
As soon as dispatch confirms that emergency personnel are on their way, I force myself to settle down so that I can say soothing words to Jalen. He stopped protesting the pain from my pressure on his wound about thirty seconds ago, so I’m not sure if he is even able to hear me. Between words of encouragement, footsteps approach from the elevator, and I nearly collapse in relief that help has finally arrived.
“What happened?” a gruff male voice asks just out of view, accompanied by the sound of jingling keys.
“My brother is inside and has been gravely injured. First responders are on their way.”
“I’ll take over out here, you get inside and help your brother,” the man says.
The zip of the cuffs closing around her wrists is a beautiful sound, even as the man is met with a fresh string of colorful expletives from Leah. As soon as she is secure, Cameron is by my side on the floor and moves my red-stained hands aside so that he can take point. I happily relinquish it to him but add my hands on top of his to help, and Jalen gives a relieving sign of life under the added pressure with an anguished moan.
“We’re right here, brother,” Cameron says. “We’re not going anywhere, but you need to hang on a little longer.”
Jalen murmurs something unintelligible as dispatch gives another update over the phone that police are arriving at the hotel now, with the ambulance ready for transport right behind them. I meet Cameron’s tormented eyes as we lean over the top of his brother, shoulder to shoulder, and try to remain strong for him while we wait the remaining agonizing minutes for the first responders to arrive.
Blue-and-white lights bounce off every reflective surface on the street corner outside the hotel as at least half of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department responds to our call. Even though he was supposed to be on administrative leave, Cartwright finds his way to us too. As soon as the ambulance doors shut behind Jalen and Cameron, Cartwright grabs my hand, and we run to his truck as fast as we can.
“We need to get ahead of them so that we can get you into the ER before they lock it down,” Cartwright says as we jump into his truck. He slams on the accelerator to pull around traffic before I even have my seatbelt on. “It’s policy to seal the lobby when someone arrives with a gunshot wound, and the status of possible accomplices is unknown.”
A chill runs down my spine at the idea of accomplices as I remember that Cameron referred to Nash’s illegal activity as acriminal enterprise. There’s no saying who else might be lurking around the corner to finish the job, but if I don’t make it inside before they go into a temporary lockdown, I won’t be there with Cameron for whatever happens next.
Cartwright swerves through traffic for the next two miles, cutting people off and receiving an endless string of honks and middle fingers, until we finally make it to the hospital for him to drop me off right outside the emergency room doors. He waves his arm furiously at me to get out just as the ambulance whines behind us, and I run as fast as I can inside the automatic doors.
I am out of breath and in such a frenzy that I completely forget that I wore a white sweater today, which is now stained with Jalen’s dark red blood. Every head inside the waiting room turns to look at me, and the guard on duty moves his hand towards his gun. I respond on pure instinct by raising my bloody hands into the air.
