“Definitely not,” I said. I rolled the broccoli to one side of my plate and noticed Jared’s expression twisting to chagrin.
“I should have ordered that without broccoli, I’m sorry.”
I giggled. “It’s fine, Jared. I can separate the broccoli from my food.”
“I just want tonight to be perfect…I’m forgetting things,” he said, glowering at the broccoli on the rim of my plate as if it had insulted him.
That one phrase caught my attention. “Why does it have to be perfect?”
Jared shifted uncomfortably in his chair and sighed with relief when the waitress came to refill our water glasses.
“Where was I?” he asked after the waitress left.
I blotted my lips with a napkin. “We’re moving too fast?”
“No…I mean yes, that’s where I was at, but no, I don’t think we’re moving too fast,” he paused for a moment and then looked warily at me. “You don’t think we are, do you?”
I giggled and shook my head. “No.” My eyebrows moved in as I watched him get increasingly nervous. “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. I’m perfect. You okay?”
“Yeah…you’re kinda freaking me out, though,” I turned my head to the side slightly as I eyed him with suspicion.
Jared closed his eyes and then took a deep, relaxing breath. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little keyed up.”
“Relax. It’s just dinner,” I said, reaching across the table to his hand.
“Huh…yeah,” Jared said, laughing once at my suggestion, and then looking down at his plate.
“I was thinking St. Lucia for our vacation. They have air conditioners, there,” I smiled.
“I’ll make the calls tomorrow,” he said, distracted.
I pondered that for a moment and then narrowed my eyes. “My mother must pay you well.”
“Very well,” he nodded.
I rolled another piece of broccoli to the side of my plate. “Well, technically, I pay you well.”
“What?” Jared said, freezing in the middle of a bite.
I shrugged. “Well, when Jack died — his estate, his assets, everything…it’s mine.”
“What? I thought your mother….” Jared shook his head, taken off-guard.
“Oh, she can live there, she can deal with the bills and the taxes and the rest of it until I graduate. I can’t deal with it all right now.”
“So…you pay me?” Jared asked, grimacing. He didn’t seem happy at the idea.
“Why? Do you want a raise?” I smiled.
Jared laughed. “As much as I love my job, maybe I should be paying you.” I smiled at his words, and he worked to relax his expression. “So, it’s been a month since you moved in. Are you comfortable? Does it feel like home, yet?”
I sighed, looking into his breathtaking blue-grey eyes. “It felt like home before I moved in. You’re my home, Jared.”
He beamed at my words and reached down into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Nina, there’s something I….”
The waitress approached the table and Jared slumped against his chair, looking slightly disappointed. She took our plates and left us alone with the dessert menu.
“Angel Food cake is on the menu,” he smiled.
“I’m definitely going to have a slice of that.”
I watched Jared scroll over the list of pies, cakes and ice cream. While he searched, I noticed a small, glowing red dot appear over his shoulder and then slowly make its way across the table. I lowered my menu as I watched it hit the edge of the table, and then travel up the bodice of my dress, settling over my heart.
“Huh,” I said in a higher, bewildered pitch.
“What, sweetheart?” Jared asked, still looking over the menu.
“There must be someone else in here. They’re playing with one of those laser-pointer thingies,” I said, still watching it quiver on my chest.
My body jerked, and I felt the world spin in slow motion. The sounds of war impeded the air around me and I struggled to gain my bearings. Glass crashed to the floor, and high-pitched buzzing noises accompanied the staccato of gunfire. My arms and legs felt constricted and heavy, but at the same time weightless; flying through the air, higher and higher. I closed my eyes and tried to sift through the confusion.
Jared’s voice called to me from far away, and as his voice grew closer, so did the buzzing and tapping noises.
“Nina!” Jared yelled.
Sitting on the ground with my back to the inside of the waiter’s station, time sped up and the noises blurred together. Jared reached above me, and I heard a ripping noise. With one hand he placed a large board behind my back, leaning me against it. He ducked once and called my name again.
“Nina!”
My mind abruptly caught up with the present. Jared had reached across the table the second he’d noticed the red dot, and we flew together under a slew of gunfire to the middle of the room. He quickly righted me and ripped the marble countertop off above us, placing it behind me as a shield.
A hail of bullets soared around us again, and I could hear the waitress screaming from the back in Japanese. Jared yelled something back to her and then turned to me.
The red table cloth had made the journey with us, and I was tangled in it. I covered my head as the next barrage of bullets surged through the restaurant. When I looked up, I noticed a red stain on Jared’s shirt that grew larger with every passing second.
“Jared!”
He looked at me with confusion and then followed my line of sight to his shoulder.
“It’s fine,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “Are you okay?” he yelled over the breaking glass and gunfire, ducking as he spoke.
I nodded, watching Jared’s confused expression turn to concern. He looked down at his thigh and touched his pants.
“Did you get hit in the leg, too?” I asked, ducking with another onslaught of gunfire.
“No…I….” he said, looking back at me. Suddenly his eyes widened and he looked down to my lap, pulling at the tablecloth twisted around me. Finally freeing me from the fabric, he yanked up the skirt of my dress, seeing a bloody mess on my thigh.
“Oh my God, Nina, you’re hit.”
We exchanged fearful expressions just as the next barrage of bullets ricocheted through the room. My brain registered the pain the moment I saw the wound, and a searing sensation immediately radiated from the bullet hole in all directions.
“You’re going to be okay!” Jared yelled over the breaking glass, his face tightening.
The restaurant was being torn apart by bullets. The walls and tables were splintered, the floor covered in glass shards. He pulled the tie from his neck and looped it around my upper thigh, yanking it tight, and then he wadded up the table cloth and pressed it against my leg. The sting intensified as it shot throughout my body, and I cried out in pain.
Jared’s face tensed and he lifted his hand from the table cloth, both dark red with my blood. He put more pressure on it and I cried out again.
He shook his head. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
He kept his hand on my leg as he backed up to the station beside me, and then slowly leaned his head out. He immediately jerked back, narrowly dodging dozens of shots aimed directly at him. Whoever was outside only had to keep us pinned down until I bled to death, and they would succeed in killing us both.
Jared’s eyes searched the room in desperation. He scanned the ceiling and walls, and attempted to see what was in the back, ducking at another set of bullets. When more firing resounded, I noticed that those shots sounded different, closer.
I pulled his hand from my leg and pressed my hand on the tablecloth, wincing. “Go, Jared. Find a way out.”
“I won’t leave you,” he said, desperate.
I took in a deep breath, trying to focus beyond the pain. “If you don’t, we’re both going to die.”
Jared clinched his eyes shut and pressed his lips together, the clash of priorities sending hi
m into anguish. He turned to me, his eyes midnight blue.
“I’m going to go straight down the hall to see if there’s another way out, and then I’m coming back, okay? I’m going to get us out of here,” he promised.
I smiled and nodded, my eyes glossing over. “I know.”
He grabbed each side of my face and kissed me on the lips first, and then on the forehead.
More bullets cascaded through the building, and the different pitch of gunfire was just behind us. Jared pulled me close and I flinched at our impending end.
Jared laughed and I looked up, seeing Claire ten feet away, her back against a concrete pillar.
“Thought I’d come join the party!” Claire called to us, throwing a gun to Jared and then situating herself with her rifle.
“I love you, baby sister!” Jared cried.
Claire winked at him. “I told you that you’d figure that out one of these days!” She cocked her gun and then looked up, took a deep breath, and then twisted her body, taking several shots before turning back around to escape the return fire.
She turned to Jared, then. “You’ve got four in the upper floors of the North building, two behind the dumpster, four each on both roofs, and three on the ground, on your ten, twelve and two. I’ll stay here with Nina. You go clean house.”
Jared smiled and turned to me. “Hang on, honey. I’ll be back in a sec.”
“Have a good day at work,” I smiled.
Claire tossed him a few more clips of ammunition, and then he leaned into me, his lips pressing hard against mine. “Promise me you’ll stay awake.”
“I promise,” I whispered, and then he disappeared.
Claire was beside me in the next moment, and she immediately pressed down on the table cloth.
“Agh!” I screamed.
“You’ve got to keep pressure on that, dummy, or you’re going to bleed out before we get you to the hospital,” she barked, taking a few shots behind us with her rifle.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Bitch,” I said, laughing when Claire did.
“Open your eyes, Nina! You have to stay awake!” she yelled, patting my cheek.
I widened my eyes and blinked a few times. “I feel nauseous,” I said, swallowing.
She looked down at my hand on my thigh, both covered in scarlet. “It’s because you’re losing so much blood. I’ve got to cover Jared, but you stay awake!”
Claire pulled a hand gun from the holster on her back and shot several rounds, simultaneously whipping a rifle over her head and stabilized it on top of the remaining wood of our make-shift fort. Staring down her sights, her tiny frame jerked back with each shot as large brass casings flipped out and over, landing all around me.
“Your SIX, Jared!” Claire screamed as she took more shots with her rifle with one hand, and intermittently straightened her head to use her hand gun with the other.
The bullets no longer showered the restaurant as they seemed to be mostly out in the street. Claire repacked her guns on her person and grabbed the back of my dress, pulling me across the floor. She side-stepped down the hall to the kitchen in a crouched position, and I swallowed back the nausea as I noticed the thick trail of blood along the white tile behind us.
She propped me against a cabinet and appraised my condition. “Yikes, you’re really pale,” she said, leaning back quickly to look down the hall and then righting herself to reload her firearm.
“I feel pale, thanks,” I mumbled, my eyes feeling heavy.
“Hurry up, Jared,” she muttered, wiping my bangs from my eyes. I noticed, then, that I was sweating, my wet hair matting against my brow.
The gunshots were quieting down outside, with only sporadic shots fired every minute or so. I began to shiver and Claire frowned, concerned with my diminishing state.
The waitress was curled up in a corner across from us. She looked at me with wide, terrified eyes, noticing my leg.
“It’s getting quiet,” I mumbled.
“That’s because Jared has taken care of most of the people shooting at us,” Claire said with a contrived smile.
“Where is Jared? Why isn’t he back, yet?” I struggled for breath.
“He’s coming. Just hang on, Nina,” she said, distracted as she checked the hall once again.
I needed a more specific time frame. Worried about how much longer I would have to fight to hang on, the question fell short. I looked around the room and it began to blur and spin.
“You’re losing too much blood. We have to move,” Claire said, pulling me to the doorway. She peered out quickly before leaning back to speak to the waitress, asking her something in Japanese. The woman pointed and nodded, whimpering back an answer.
Claire smiled at me. “There’s a back door. We’ll pick Jared up on the way…let’s go.”
“I’ll be right behind you,” I deadpanned.
With her rifle in one hand, she tossed me over her shoulder with the other. As if I weighed nothing, she carried me down the hall, took a turn, and then stopped for less than a second before issuing a damaging blow with her foot to a heavy steel door.
I could feel the night air cooling the warm blood on my leg, and I breathed a sigh of relief that we had finally escaped into the alley. We had almost made it to the street when Claire froze and lowered me to the ground.
“Rookie mistake, Claire Bear,” Grahm said, pointing his gun. His nose was still taped from where she’d shattered it with her elbow.
“Awfully brave of you to come alone,” she smiled.
I had seen Claire’s smug expression before, but this time it was different. She had an edge of fear in her eyes. She knew that I was running out of time.
Grahm turned to me. “I told you I’d see you soon, Nina. Looks like I’m not even going to have to waste a bullet…you look pretty close to death’s door. Such a waste, too,” he said, clicking his tongue in disapproval. “I was looking forward to spending some time with you.”
I held myself up with my hands, but my arms were quivering from exhaustion. I struggled to keep my eyes focused, and my lungs were having a hard time feeling satisfied with each shallow breath. Grahm was right, but I would fight it; I had to keep my heart beating to save Jared.
“If she dies, Grahm, I won’t kill you quickly,” Claire said through her teeth, her voice quivering with anger. “You will suffer…for days. Maybe even weeks…Hell will be a sweet relief compared to what I will do to you.”
Grahm laughed, pointing his shotgun at me. “I could end her life right now, but I think I like watching you squirm while we watch her die.”
I coughed, and fell to my elbows, my palms flat on the damp pavement of the alley. The nausea became more of a promise than a threat, and the sweat dripped from my hairline into my eyes. Grahm planned to hold us at gunpoint until my heart stopped beating, and Jared would soon become sick and die. The rage welled up inside me and I gritted my teeth in anger.
I looked up at the barrel of the gun. “I wish I could watch what she does to you, Grahm, you sorry sack of—,”
“Now, now…” he laughed. “Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Do you even have a mother, Grahm? Or did you just come straight from the bowels of Hell?” I gasped, feeling my life slipping away.
Grahm cocked his gun. “You’re sassy, Nina. I like that. Maybe I will show a little mercy…not really my style, but I’ll make an exception for Jack’s daughter.”
I shut my eyes tight and waited, but the end never came. When I looked up, Grahm stood with his back arched, his eyes wide and bulging, staring straight ahead. A string of drool fell from his mouth as he fell forward. Jared stood in his place with a bloody fist.
“Nice,” Claire said, lifting my limp body from the ground.
“I ran out of bullets,” Jared quipped, taking me from Claire’s arms. We surged forward, taking off so fast I thought he had finally sprouted wings.
I tried to focus as he lifted me into the backseat of his Escalade, cradling me in
his arms. Claire jumped into the driver seat. “Rhode Island Hospital is closer, right?”
“Yes!” Jared cried. “Go, Claire, Go!”
“I’m going to bleed on the seat,” I mumbled.
Jared laughed nervously. “I don’t care about the seat…you just stay with me.”
“I’m cold,” I whispered. My body shivered uncontrollably even against his warm body.
“Claire,” Jared warned, holding me tightly against him.
“Two minutes,” she said as the SUV jerked with a sharp turn.
“She doesn’t have two minutes,” Jared groaned.
“Jared?” I called into the dark.
I felt his warm hand on my cheek. “I’m here.”
“Jared?” I cried. I was so tired, and I was afraid. I didn’t know if I was strong enough to keep us both alive.
“I’m here, Nina. You stay with me, do you hear me?” I heard his voice break. “I’ve got plans for you.”
I felt the Escalade screech to a halt and the door flew open. Jared scrambled from the back, holding me tightly in his arms.
Jared yelled for help, and then a large group of people surrounded me.
“Sir, I need you to put her on the gurney,” I heard a woman say.
I felt Jared’s warm lips on my forehead and his grip tightened.
“Sir!”
“You promised me,” Jared choked. “Keep your promise, Nina.”
Jared lowered me onto a hard mattress and his hand squeezed mine before he let go. “I’ll see you soon.”
I searched for Jared’s face with my unfocused eyes as the doctor’s and nurses’ voices blurred above me.
“Jared?” I called to him.
“You need to leave the room, sir. Sir? You’ll have to leave!” I heard as I reached out for his hand with the last bit of strength I had left.
When I rose to the surface again, the early morning sun was peeking through the blinds. I looked over to my right hand that was tangled in Jared’s large, warm fingers. His head rested on the hospital bed beside me, his face still and peaceful. It was such an extraordinary sight to see him sleeping, so I let him be. I sat completely still, keeping my breaths even, watching the shadows dance down the wall with the rising sun.
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