“Olivia go!” I cried. She needed to make sure she was out of harm’s way.
Xavier whipped out his gun and hit me right across my face with the barrel. Pain lanced through my head making me see stars.
I nearly blacked out but a sharp breath helped clear my head. I kneed him from behind making him fall forwards. The advantage freed me to some extent but not enough. He regained his composure and pulled the trigger back to fire at me but I held his arm back. Several shots fired into the air from his gun.
I twisted his arm around and managed to flick him over so that I was on top.
I punched him back as he tried to break free. He couldn’t free himself, however, from the lock I had him placed in. the bad thing though was the gun was right between us.
This wasn’t going to end well for one of us. The gun was between us. It was pressed into my stomach. I didn’t know which end it was.
I heard the distinct click- clack then the piercing shot shook me.
It shook me right to the core and I felt it all over my body. The impact actually made me see stars. But… it didn’t go through me. The bullet didn’t get me. I wasn’t the one who was shot. So, that must have meant…
Xavier’s eyes bulged and widened like saucers. His face tensed and sweat beaded on his upper lip. He released a sharp breath then stilled, eyes wide. I moved from on top of him and saw the blood pouring from his chest. It was all over me and he was soaked.
I killed him. I actually killed him.
Around me were the team I’d worked with. All of them dead.
“Sam.” Olivia called me, her voice sounded faint.
I looked across to where I thought she’d ran and nearly died when I saw her on the ground. I raced to her side without any further thought, panic and dread making my heart gallop as I picked her up. Like Xavier, blood was all over her chest.
She’d been shot!
How?
When?
No, not her. Not Olivia. Not her.
“Noooooo!” I shouted. “No, Olivia.”
“The bullet hit me as I tried… to escape.” Her eyes fluttered close then opened again and tears streamed down her cheeks. Her normally vibrant golden skin instantly went an ashen color.
I pulled her close to my heart, trying to keep the life in her.
“Olivia it’s going to be okay,” I whispered into her ear.
“I don’t feel so good,” she replied in a quivering voice. “It’s like that time when I ate that blueberry pie Coop made and it made me sick.”
Coop.
God no. Not this again. I held Coop as the last ounce of life left his body. He died in my arms. That could happen to Olivia.
It could happen to Olivia…
And, because of me.
“No.”
“I love you.” she breathed.
“Don’t you dare tell me that. Don’t no. Please.” She reached up and touched my cheek.
“I love you Sam and I’m so glad you came to me. I may have seemed upset that first day, but I was glad to see you.”
“I love you.” I breathed and in her eyes I saw the softness and compassion she always showed me. When she was five, when she was just ten years old. When she promised to write to me. When she first told me she loved me, when she agreed to be my wife. Always my girl.
This couldn’t be happening. Not to her.
At that moment Joe ran through the doors and straight over to us.
Just like that night when Coop died he looked beside himself with tears streaming down his cheeks as he cried.
This was worse though. It was the second time for the same thing to happen.
It was the second time that I’d held one of his children in this state.
On the doors of death.
Me…
I caused this.
Chapter 19
Olivia
* * *
Bleach…
I was pretty certain that was that bleach smell again.
Bleach and coffee…
So where was I?
It was a horrible thing to wake up somewhere and not know where the hell you were.
And bright lights…
Where was I?
I tried to move my head. Big mistake, a headache that took me just like before gave me that sickly feeling again. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths to get past the feeling. It seemed to work, only somewhat.
“Olivia, oh my God. You’re awake.” That was Jada.
I opened my eyes again and saw her face looming over me. She’d been crying an still was.
“What happened?”
“Girl, I swear I’ll never call you boring again. You can’t do this to me. I never meant for you to go to the other extreme and get yourself nearly killed.”
“Killed?” I couldn’t remember at first. Then I did. “Killed.”
I remembered it all in one gulp as if somewhat had splashed the memory all over my face.
I’d been shot. Just as I was running away.
Me, shot with an actual gun. Like Coop. Someone had shot me, and I lived. I was alive. I couldn’t believe I was alive. The memory of the pain that pierced into my body came back too. Pain like I’d never felt before. Pain that was indescribable.
I got shot.
I got shot and Sam. He was crying.
“I got shot Jada.”
“I know sweetie. You had surgery to remove the bullet. It was near your heart Olivia. We’ve been praying, but… we nearly lost you. It came damn close.”
“Thank you.” I tried to nod but couldn’t do it properly. My neck felt stiff. “I appreciate that a lot Jada. Please tell me where’s Sam, and Dad?”
She bit the inside of her lip. “Your dad’s here.” she nodded.
I didn’t miss the fact that she didn’t include Sam. “Is Sam coming back? Did he go somewhere?”
“Olivia, you should rest. You’ve been in a coma for over a week.”
I gasped. “What?”
“Ten days. Today is ten days.”
“Then I don’t need rest. Tell me where Sam is Jada.”
She tilted her head to the side and gave me a sympathetic smile. “He’s been here. Outside. I tell him how you are, and I’ll tell him now that you’re awake.”
“Why didn’t he come in?”
“Your dad asked him not to. he asked him to keep his distance so you could heal. Olivia, I won’t lie. He blames him for what happened to you. He’s specifically asked the hospital staff not to let Sam see you.”
“Dad did that?” I couldn’t believe Dad would do something like that. I tried to move but pain lanced through me and I noticed I was attached to a host of wires and monitors.
“Olivia please keep still.” She placed her hand on mine.
“I want to know what’s happening with Sam and Dad,” I insisted. “Dad blames him?”
“I’m sorry sweetie, he does. I don’t, but I see where he’s coming from. I think you can too.”
I could, I really could.
It …took me back to that conversation I had with Dad about Sam being trouble and danger.
Me being in a hospital bed recovering from being shot and nearly dying didn’t tend to give anyone comfort.
“It wasn’t his fault Jada.” I shook my head.
“That’s what I said to Joe too, and right there in front of Sam he said, it never is. My heart broke for the both of them.”
Dad was talking about Coop …
While I understood where he was coming from indeed that didn’t make it fair.
“Please try not to stress. I’ve already told you too much. I’m going to get Joe.”
I nodded.
Dad rushed in two minutes later with the doctors who checked over my vitals. He looked so happy to see me alive and awake.
“Blood pressure’s still quite high.” One of the doctors said to Dad. He was a short bald man with a handle bar mustache. “It’s probably the excitement so I’m going to have to ask you to cut t
his visit short.”
Dad nodded his agreement. “Of course. That’s no problem. I’ll be less than five minutes.”
“That’ll be okay. We’ll call you in the morning and let you know when you can come back to see her.”
“Thank you.” Dad gave a grateful smile.
Once the doctors left Dad took my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
“It wasn’t your fault Dad.” I wanted to say it wasn’t Sam’s fault either but stopped myself. I was too weak to argue.
“I wish I could have stopped it from happening. I’m a captain, I’ve been in the force for too many years and this happened to my child.”
I shook my head. “Dad please don’t blame yourself.”
He bowed his head and looked at me with sad filled eyes then on a breath he smiled. “You’re going to be okay and I will take better care of you. Marcus came to visit a few times.”
“That was really nice of him.”
“He bought those.” Dad pointed to the bunch of chrysanthemums in the vase.
It was one example of why Marcus and I would have never gotten on as a couple. Those were the one type of flower I told him I hated but he probably got mixed up and thought it was the reverse. He didn’t really hear anything that wasn’t work related.
“That was nice of him.” It was all I could say. Again.
The next logical thing for me to ask was about Sam, except I couldn’t ask the question.
“My chest hurts.” I winced.
“I know sweetheart. It’s going to for a while. But it’s going to be okay. It will I promise. You’ll need a bit of physio for a few months but after that you’ll be as good as gold. I was thinking we could go to this place in Chicago. It’s a resort with a spa and all the treatment you need. Marcus has already agreed whatever time off you need so don’t worry about work or anything. And… I’m babbling. I just don’t want you to worry. Please don’t worry.”
I looked at him, took note of everything he talked about and a tear ran down my cheek.
“Can’t you at least tell me why Sam’s not here?” I wanted to hear it from him. “I don’t care about anything else. Dad, you would have known that he would have been the first thing on my mind.”
At least he looked sympathetic, not angry like when we spoke whenever it was.
“I told him to stay away. It’s simple and sweetheart there’s not a thing you can say to me that will make me think different. I was right and look what nearly happened to you. Coop, and now you. but you lived. You lived. It’s my second chance to prevent something from happening. All the while I never blamed Sam for any of what happened to Coop, but maybe if I did you wouldn’t have been with him.”
“You didn’t blame him because it wasn’t his fault.”
“Baby girl, my son was a bright shining star that could have been anybody he wanted to be. I thought he was okay. Then Sam happened and he didn’t have family like we did. I brought him into our home and his bad ways rubbed off on my son. I was so busy saving Sam that I allowed Coop to slip away from me. then no one could help him. In the meantime Sam was with you. Those men took you because you were his price. I nearly lost you. I could have. So please don’t… don’t try to make me see any different to what I see. It’s not like I made it up. You’re here and it’s because of him.”
“Dad...”
“No. This is too heavy to discuss now. You just woke up. You just woke up and you need to rest.” He lowered and pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I watched him walk to the door, stop and look back to me. “I’ll see you in the morning. I love you.”
“I love you too.”
There was a time in life when you had to see truth. Undeniable truth that couldn’t be painted any other way than what it was.
The truth.
I rested my head back on the pillow. The movement hurt my chest.
It was funny it felt like I had a hole there. It was right next to the hole in my heart. In the place that had love and I might have to seal off one more time.
Dad was right.
He actually was right and yes there was nothing I could say to make him think any differently to what he’d thought.
I was here…
Trouble and danger had placed me in the hospital for over ten days in a coma, fighting for my life.
I was at that point again where I had to make a choice.
I had to make a choice…
* * *
Sam
* * *
The sadness hit me tenfold as I drove away from the beach house.
The realters would come in the morning and take it back. It was clean and empty like I was never there. like the place was never graced with Olivia, my angel.
When I first got the house I never thought I’d have so many happy memories there. I just thought the house looked like the kind I would buy if I were buying, then when she went there it crossed my mind that it was the kind of house I would have gotten too for us.
The thought even entered my mind that I could just keep the place for a while because it suited us. So much had happened in the short space of time that I was here.
Too much. Too much that hardly mattered now.
What was important was Olivia didn’t die. She pulled through. Came close, came real close but my girl didn’t die.
My girl.
No not anymore.
I’d come to the end of the road. The end of my journey with her. I guess too with Joe.
What happened to her was the last straw and realistically I had no grounds to stay and fight. So it was back to the original plan I had when I was fifteen.
Leave.
Leave and never come back. Leave and go somewhere I could…
Well, I didn’t know what I could do. Most people left to start over. most people left wherever they came from for the prospect of finding something new.
I was leaving because it was for the best.
It was the butterfly effect.
I was the butterfly effect in the St. Claire family. I was the change in their lives that made big, terrible things happen. The only thing left for me to do to stop the effect was leave.
Remember them and leave.
I could keep the memories and hold them in my heart but I couldn’t be around them anymore.
Coop, Olivia, Joe.
Olivia…
I wrote her a letter this time to say goodbye. It would have been nice to see her when she woke up yesterday, but I got it.
I understood.
Joe didn’t want me there making things worse. Making the situation harder.
I guess I’d be the same as him if the tables were turned. I’d be the same. The woman was an angel. She always was.
A guy like me should have stayed away. I had no business thinking I could be with someone like her.
It would have been good to see her one last time, but I understood that too. Why I couldn’t. It was all for the best.
I gave the chip to Agent Fox. At the time Olivia was in a coma and all I cared about was her. There was no way I was going to leave and go to Washington with her in such a bad way.
I thought when Coop died I’d experienced grief at its fullest and finest.
However, I didn’t know true grief until it was Olivia who was on the verge of death.
The paramedics came and had to resuscitate her because she stopped breathing. If that wasn’t a sign from the universe telling me I couldn’t be with her then I didn’t know what was.
As she started breathing and her heart started beating again I knew in that moment I had to leave. Not for me but for her. It was that thing Joe talked about. Me taking the high road. Manning up for the both of us because she couldn’t see I was bad news for her.
She needed a second chance at life. Fresh and free from me. Me who was trouble and into danger.
She needed to be that young woman she was way back when who wanted to go to New York and be this t
op lawyer who owned the world.
I could see her doing what she loved and with a man who could love her and protect her.
That wasn’t me though. Not me. I loved her to no end, but as for protecting her…
No, I couldn’t. I wasn’t capable of it.
I pulled up in the parking lot of the hospital and got out of my car.
Jada was just walking by. She stopped when she saw me and gave me a warm smile that brightened her large brown eyes.
“Please tell me you’re going to try and see her today.” She placed her hands on her hips and pouted. The flick of her hair bounced when she looked me over assessing me.
I shook my head. “Miss Jada. I wish I could tell you that but I’m here for different reasons.”
Her gaze shifted to the back of my car where my stuff was packed, then she narrowed her eyes at me. “Different reasons? You’re leaving again.” She shook her head in complete disdain.
“Jada, you know I have to.”
“Sam you’re a better man than this. I gave you the benefit of the doubt when things looked really bad for you. When Olivia went crazy stupid and considered the unearthly possibility that maybe she didn’t know you and time could have changed you, I told her no. My heart told me no because you’re not that guy.”
My shoulders dropped. “I’m grateful Jada, I am. But this is what’s best for her. I need to do this.”
She brought her hands together. “I know you think that sounds right, but it’s not. It really isn’t. It definitely isn’t. She’s going to be heartbroken. She’s already in pain because she wants to see you. I hoped that you would do something dramatic by now, like bust in and tell Joe to go to hell because you need to see your girl.”
I gave her a soft smile and appreciated more so that she guessed what I wished I could have done a million times over in these excruciating eleven days.
“Jada, thank you for being there. We didn’t really get to talk that much before. I don’t know why but, hey. I couldn’t have gotten through the last few days without you.” If not for her I literally wouldn’t know anything.
“You’re really going…”
Yours Truly Page 13