“Shit! Come on, Ellie!” Jett yells over the propellers. “Be the strong girl we all know you are!”
The spotlight shines on us as the EMS helicopter lands. The door flies open and two flight paramedics dressed in all white exit with a gurney and oxygen.
They check her vitals as soon as they reach us and instruct Jett and me not to move.
“Ellie?” one of the medics asks. “Ellie, can you hear me?”
She doesn’t respond.
I watch withdrawn as the two men work rapidly to bandage the bleeding, place her on the gurney, and cover her face with an oxygen mask. Right before they lift her, I whisper in her ear. “Ellie, if your hearts stop beating so will mine. Third rule of survival, fight like hell. Stay with me.” Tears escape down my cheeks as she’s carried away, leaving me helpless, hopeless, and in utter despair.
“Come on, come on.” Jett pulls on my arm, lifting me to my feet as the helicopter takes off. My entire existence is in that aircraft. Everything I have to live for.
He hauls me into the back of a Suburban I didn’t even see pull up, and we speed off in the same direction as the transport.
“It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.” Juice’s voice is distant compared to Ellie’s in my head. “Till death do us part.”She only said that yesterday. Yesterday was the start of our tomorrow and now tomorrow might not even exist.
“Put this on,” Jett whips a shirt in my face while Juice drives like a maniac. “And here,” he hands me a pack of wipes. Black op survival kit, a change of clothes and baby wipes. “We gotta clean up, they’ll never let us in the hospital looking like we just left the scene of a massacre.”
“Didn’t we?” I tighten my fists and draw them into my chest. I don’t want to clean Ellie’s blood off my hands. It’s the only piece of her I have to hold on to.
“Kayne.” Jett chastises me as we speed through Honolulu. “Come on.” He grabs my hands and starts wiping frantically in the dark. I look up at him, removed. I feel like I’m six years old again. Helpless, alone, and scared out of my mind. “If she dies, you’re going to have to bury me with her.”
Jett pulls his lips into a tight line. “She’s not going to die.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know everything,” he says, not sounding very confident of knowing anything at all.
Juice pulls up in front of the hospital, and Jett and I jump out. We’re somewhat put together, but still look like we just walked through hell. Or maybe that’s just me.
“Ellie Stevens,” Jett asks the front desk guard. “She was brought in by medivac. Gunshot wound.”
The elderly man in a security uniform punches something into his computer.
“Steven or Stevens?” he asks.
“Stevens,” Jett answers. I pace.
“Ellie with a Y or i.e.?”
“I.e.”
The man shakes his head.
“Female?”
I fume. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? I slam my fist onto the desk. ”Elizabeth Anne Stevens. Female, with a fucking F!”
The man jumps.
“Kayne!” Jett yanks me back. “Re-fucking-lax. We’re all worried about her, but giving the security guard a heart attack won’t help.”
“Fine!’ I throw my hands up and walk away, leaving Jett to deal with the incompetent man.
“Down the hall, second set of double doors. Emergency medicine.”
Finally.
