by M. Never
“NO!” I tackle Michael to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hand. We roll over the thick lush grass, struggling for control. I pull a power move, grabbing under one of his legs and hooking an arm around his neck. He punches me in the head and kicks out of my hold. We both get to our feet and I don’t waste a second going back at his body, grabbing hold of his chest and landing a kidney shot. He knees me in the stomach, but I barely register it. There’s so much adrenaline pumping through my system it feels like I have wings.
“I’m going to let you be the first to see what happens when someone fucks with what’s mine.” I smash Michael right in the face and his nose explodes with blood.
“Fuck!” He stumbles back making a go for his gun. He grabs it and points it at me, but I kick it out of his hand then punch him again. He drops to the ground, and I continue to pound on his face. Soon, it’s barely recognizable. His cheeks are swollen, his lips are split, and his eyebrows are ripped open. I pull my fist back about to slam him again when he speaks.
“Do it! Kill me, you motherfucker! Just like you killed my father!” I pause to look at him mid punch. He thinks I killed El Rey? Everything begins to make sense now. Ellie, Endeavor, he was trying to get to me.
I lower my fist and respond harshly. “You’re wrong about one thing. I didn’t kill your father.” He sputters blood as I speak. “But you’re right about the other. I am going to kill you.” I jerk a Glock out of my back holster and pull the trigger, shooting him square between the eyes. Then I pull it again—and again and again. I pull it until the chamber clicks.
Then I reload and repeat.
“Kayne!” I hear Juice’s sharpened voice cut through my murderous rampage. “I think he’s dead!”
“Not enough for me.” I squeeze the trigger one last time.
“Heel man. Jett needs you. Ellie needs you.”
“Ellie!?” I snap out of my lethal haze and turn to see Jett leaning over her body under the bright moonlight.
“Ellie? Ellie?” I crawl over to them. “Ellie?” I examine her face. Her eye is swollen, and her lip is bleeding.
“Give me your shirt!” Jett roars. It takes a second for my mind to catch up with my body as I process the scene in front of me. Jett’s hands covered in blood. Ellie lying still as a statue, a pool of red staining the grass underneath her, growing larger by the second.
“Kayne now! She’s going to bleed out!”
Without thinking, I rip off my holster and tear off my shirt. “I need you to hold here.” He takes my hand and places it on his already soaked T-shirt pressed against her abdomen.
“I think it went straight through. I need to compress the exit wound.” He tilts her body, assesses her back, and then applies pressure with my shirt.
“There’s a medivac already on its way. The house is secured.” He talks to me, but all I see is Ellie, dying right before my eyes.
We hear the chopper in the distance. “Two minutes max,” he says.
It’s going to be the longest two minutes of my life.
“Kayne,” Ellie’s faint voice calls my name.
“Ellie, I’m right here. Hold on.” I wish I could scoop her up in my arms and hold her, but I know my hands need to stay where they are.
“You were right,” she murmurs.
“About what, baby?” I try to keep her talking.
She doesn’t open her eyes as she speaks. “I am a terrible judge of character.” I nearly lose it. That’s what I said to her when she was locked in the dungeon. “I won’t hold it against you for being a bad judge of character.”
“I don’t know shit. I was talking out of my ass,” I choke.
“It’s so cold in the city.” She shivers. I glance at Jett.
“She’s hallucinating. She thinks she’s in New York,” I say, shaking.
“She’s going into shock,” he tells me as her eyes flutter and chest compresses just as the air ambulance hovers overhead.
“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.
At Emergency medicine, we don’t find out much more except Ellie is in surgery, and all we can do is wait—which feels like a set of red-hot butter knives are slicing me open one long, slow slit at a time.
“I think we should contact Ellie’s parents,” Jett tells me. “If something happens, they should be here.” There’s a grave tone in his voice. I just nod. What else can I fucking do? I’ve done everything. Everything wrong. I drop my head into my hands. I should have never gone that night. I should have stayed away like my gut told me to. She wouldn’t be here right now fighting for her life. She’d
be out having fun, living the way she so desperately wanted to. And I took that all away.
“Hey,” Jett puts his hand on my shoulder, “don’t do it.”
“Do what?” I look up at him.
“Blame yourself.”
“Too late. Too. Fucking. Late.”
He frowns. “I’m going to go arrange to have Ellie’s family flown out.”
I just nod despairingly.
Three hours. I have watched every second on the clock tick by for three agonizing hours.
“I’m looking for the family of Elizabeth Stevens,” a man in light-blue scrubs and a mask hanging off his face announces in the waiting room. Jett and I immediately stand up.
“I’m Dr. Holiday. I worked on Ms. Stevens.” He shakes both our hands.
“Jett Fox.” “Kayne Rivers.” We both reply.
“How are you related?” he inquires.
“I’m her fiancé,” I answer with a thread of composure. “How is she?”
The doctor sighs. “Ms. Stevens wound was severe. She lost a lot of blood and coded on the way to the OR.”
My knees nearly give out. Jett catches my arm and holds me up. “She—”
“No,” Dr. Holiday continues. “We were able to revive her, but she was deprived of oxygen for nearly five minutes. She’s stable, but in a coma,” he says gently.
“So, that’s good? Right?” I grasp at any tiny reassurance Ellie is going to be okay.
“It’s promising, but there is a chance, Mr. Rivers, that she’ll never wake up.
“Never?” my voice nearly disappears.
“The next forty-eight hours are critical.”
I nod, barely holding it together.
“There was something else,” the doctor frowns.
“What?”
“Our examination showed severe trauma to the vaginal region.”
I blink rapidly at the doctor. “She was raped?”
He nods. “If she does wake up, a social worker will be visiting.”
I don’t hear the last part as rage explodes inside me like a nuclear bomb. I punch a hole right through the wall to relieve the pressure in my chest.
“Mr. Rivers!” the doctor shouts. “I understand this is distressing news, but please compose yourself, or I’ll be forced to call security.”
I breathe savagely in his face. “You don’t understand jack shit.”
“Kayne!” Jett yells at me for the umpteenth time tonight. “I apologize for my friend.” He steps between me and the doctor. “He’s had a very rough night.”
Dr. Holiday acknowledges with a head nod. “Hearing someone you love was hurt is never easy.”
“No, it’s not,” Jett agrees as I seethe behind him, wishing I could kill Michael all over again.
“Can we see her?” Jett asks.
“When he calms down.” With that, Dr. Holiday turns and leaves.
NOT ONLY DID JETT ARRANGE for Ellie’s parents to be flown in from New York, but he also arranged for her to have a private room with extra care.
Sometimes I don’t know how I would function without him.
My first look at Ellie lying in a hospital bed, unconscious with tubes sticking out of her, was almost too much to bear. Knowing what Michael did to her was the grain of sand that tipped the scale. Alone with Ellie, as still as silence, I finally broke down. Her suffering will always be my fault.
“I’m sorry,” I sob exhausted. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it away. I’d carry it all. It should have been me.”
“Kayne?” I feel a hand on my back. I pick my head up off Ellie’s mattress and wipe my face hastily.
“Hey. What’s up, man?” I ask Juice, trying, but failing miserably, to pretend to pull it together.
“They found this when they swept the house.” I turn to see he’s holding Ellie’s engagement ring. “I thought you’d want it.”
“Thank you.” I take the ring and slip it back on Ellie’s finger and nearly start crying all over again. I’m really not sure I’m going to survive this. I lived through a lot of fucked-up shit in my life, but this? It’s the worst of the worst.
“I’ll be back in the morning. Ellie’s parents are due in at ten. I’m picking them up and bringing them straight here.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I hide my face. “Have you seen Jett?”
“He’s in the emergency room with London.”
I snap my head back to look at him. “For what?”
“She was still sick. Couldn’t stop throwing up, so he made her come in. They’re giving her IV fluids.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Figured you have enough on your plate,” Juice states the obvious. “Get some rest, man.” He taps the doorframe then leaves.
Yeah, right.
I WATCH THE SUN COME up through the window. Bright yellow rays breaking through the dark sky.
Ellie hasn’t moved a muscle, or fluttered an eyelash, or twitched a lip.
The nurses come and go—readjusting pillows, checking vitals, and taking blood. I never move from her side. I just hold her hand and imagine all the things I want to do with her when she wakes up. The wedding I’m going to give her, the honeymoon I’ll surprise her with.
“Ellie, you have to wake up. There are so many things I have to tell you.” My heart pinches in my chest. “All the ways you’ve changed my life. I want to tell you all my secrets. I want you to be the one to know.” I caress her hand with my thumb. Always so soft. “I’ve been thinking. You know how you asked which last name we should use? Well, since I’ve never really had a family of my own, I thought maybe we could use yours? You’re the closest thing to family I have besides Jett. What do you think? Kayne Stevens doesn’t sound bad, right?” I’m just fucking rambling now, slowly unraveling.
“I want to know who’s responsible!” a man’s voice bellows from the hallway. I immediately stand up as the door to Ellie’s room swings open. “I want to know why my little girl is laying in a hospital bed fighting for her life!” I stand there frozen as Juice walks in with three people I only know from pictures. Ellie’s family.
“Alec, please stop shouting.”
“Stop shouting! How can I stop shouting? Look at her!” There’s obvious emotion in the man’s green eyes. The same eyes as Ellie’s.
“Kayne. Alec, Monica, and Tara Stevens,” Juice introduces us.
“Kayne?” Her mother repeats my name as if she recognizes it. Tara eyes me suspiciously.
“Who the hell are you?” Alec snaps at me.
“Kayne Rivers, sir.” I put out my hand over Ellie. He doesn’t take it. The tension in the room intensifies. He hates me already. Can’t say that I blame him.
“I see it’s a party,” Jett walks in a moment later whiter than a ghost.
“How’s London?” I ask worriedly. I think this is the worst I’ve ever seen him.
“Pregnant.” Every head in the room swings toward him.
“What?” My jaw hits the floor.
Jett just shrugs, dumbfounded.
“Mazel tov,” Alec spits. “Now is someone going to tell me what happened here?” He motions to Ellie.
The room becomes deadly silent.
“I believe Mazel tov is used for a wedding.” Jett breaks the ice.
“Whatever. I’m very happy for you, son. Your life just got a hell of a lot more complicated, but right now I’d like to know what the hell happened to my daughter.”
“A very unfortunate accident,” I answer. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I lie. Lie upon lie upon lie. It’s what my life is built upon. Ellie is my only truth.
“Has there been an arrest?”
“No arrest,” I tell him.
“Why the hell not?” he barks.
“The perpetrator has been taken care of,” Jett informs him.
“I thought you said he hasn’t been arrested?” Alec looks crazily between Jett and me.
“He hasn’t,” I tell him menacingly calm.
“T
hen how—”
“He’s dead.”
“Who killed him?” Alec’s face contorts.
“Me,” I say evenly, staring straight into his eyes.
Alec glares at me for what seems like a lifetime before he nods, almost satisfied, then sits down next to Ellie. I look around the room; it’s suddenly very crowded and very uncomfortable. Tara makes her way next to me and picks up Ellie’s hand.
“Why is she wearing an engagement ring?”
All attention falls on me.
I clear my throat. I suddenly feel like I’m suffocating. “I asked Ellie to marry me, and she said yes.”
“What?” Alec scowls at me, Monica gasps, and Tara scoffs.
“That is so Ellie.” Tara laughs.
“What’s so Ellie?” I ask her.
Tara tosses her long platinum hair over her shoulder and looks over at me. She’s a cute girl. Big blue eyes and a nice smile. “Getting engaged to a man she didn’t even tell us she was dating. I’m surprised you two didn’t already elope.”
I glance at Jett. “We didn’t get the chance.”
Alec looks like he’s about to go into cardiac arrest, he’s turning so many shades of red.
“Why don’t we give Ellie and her family some time alone?” Jett suggests to me. I want to throw daggers at him. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving her side. He gestures with his head. I shake him off. ”Get the fuck out,” he mouths strictly. I bare my teeth at him, but do as he says, begrudgingly.
“If you need anything, I’ll be outside,” I tell her family.
“Thank you.” Monica grabs my arm and I flinch. She smiles up at me, but I don’t understand why. I don’t really appreciate her touching me either, even if she is Ellie’s mother and my potential mother-in-law.
“Big daddy Jett.” Juice clasps his shoulders once we’re outside in the hallway.
“Yeah.” He looks like he’s in shock.
“You happy?” I ask him, keeping an eye on Ellie’s room.
“Yeah.” I think that’s the only word he’s capable of at the moment.
“You going to make an honest woman out of her?” Juice asks.
“I was planning to purpose when we got back from Tahiti.”
“Why not while you were on vacation?”