Pinkie Promise

by Sarah Clay

  The whole front of my shirt seeping with red now.

  I immediately push down on the bullet hole to stop more from coming out. Biting down on my lip the second I do. The pain is too much; it takes over again.

  All of a sudden the darkness creeps over me, everything goes black.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jackson

  “Tony what if she’s not there” I whisper to him as I speed along the road to my house.

  “Her phone is, it’s our best lead right now Jackson.”

  Tony had pulled up his tracking app and was able to track her phone since it was listed under our accounts. A tidbit of information I just discovered.

  I was beyond worried at this point. I was fucking panicking.

  “How far out are the police?” I choke out, hoping they would be there when we arrived.

  He doesn’t answer, my question. Instead, I hear him say something else.

  “Jackson the door’s open” Tony calls as I throw my car door open and sprint towards my house. Slowing only to quite my steps when I move through the door.

  As soon as I creep into the entryway though I feel the blood drain from my body.

  Olivia is on the floor; her body lays lifeless; hidden under a red shirt that I knew was in fact white.

  “OLIVIA” I roar as I run towards her, not thinking of anyone else at that moment.

  Charlie, who was laid beside her, stands up and growls in my direction, attempting to protect her.

  “FUCK” I hear Tony call out as he moves further into the room.

  “Charlie” I try and speak softly, kneeling down in front of him. I’m struggling to be calm, to get him to move. But I glance back to her pale body and the blood pooling around her and I feel myself breaking.

  “Charlie, buddy, you’ve got to move so I can check on our girl. Come on bud”

  He sniffs me before sitting back down on his back legs. Giving me permission to move closer.

  I rush forward, accidentally knocking him aside. Brushing my hands all over her body before getting some sense about me and feeling for her pulse.

  “Baby, Liv, wake up” I demand, panicking.

  I can feel a pulse, but it’s too weak. When I look her over again I spot a rough jagged hole in her shirt at her shoulder. Bright blood pooling from it. Immediately I push my hands down on it. Applying pressure to stop her from losing any more.

  “Baby please wake up, just wake up Liv” I beg her.

  I hear the sirens sounding in the distance and know that help is on its way. But I’m scared it’s too late.

  I should never have left her. This was all my fault.

  “Pretty girl, just hold on for me” I press my lips down against hers, holding them to her. Wanting her to suck the life out of me if it would help her to be okay.

  I wanted it to be me who was fighting for my life, not my beautiful girl.

  Everything happened with urgency after that. Police and Ambulance arrived.

  Tony had taken hold of Charlie and directed the Police to a pistol that was laying over by Olivia’s things near the kitchen.

  Paramedics had ushered me out of the way to start working on Liv, needing to get her stable enough to move. I hadn’t moved far from her though.

  Still touching her, but I had relocated enough that I wasn’t in their way. I needed them to make sure she would be okay.

  I kept hearing words like severe blood loss, shock, possible broken ribs and lacerations to her head. The mention of a fragmented bullet was spoken and then they were moving her on to a stretcher and wheeling her out to the ambulance in a hurry.

  I raced along with them. You damn well better believe wherever she was going, I was going to.

  ∞

  As soon as we pull up at Hayward Ridge ER we rush through the doors, the paramedics spewing out information to the nurses and doctors on call.

  Immediately they begin checking her vitals and calling out for x-rays and scans. But I’m frozen beside her, gripping on to her hand so tight I’m probably going to add some broken fingers to the list.

  I lean into her, placing my mouth to the side of her head.

  “Baby please wake up” I beg her.

  Pressing my lips to her forehead, I silently plead with her while nurses and doctors are hustling around us.

  “Eyes are open, the patient is conscious” I hear a nurse call before I immediately pull back and look into her dazed eyes.

  “Olivia” I pleaded.

  I feel a nurse start pulling me away from her and I shoulder her off. Not letting go of my girls’ hand, not wanting to be away from her.

  “Sir, we need to get her into surgery, she’s lost a significant amount of blood and there could be more underlying problems” I hear the caution in her voice, and I don’t want to stand in the way of them helping her.

  I start walking along beside the trolley she’s laid on. Moving towards the Operating rooms. “This is as far as you can go, sir, you’ll need to go back to the waiting room. Someone will come out and inform you of any updates.”

  I nod as they come to a stop. Looking back to Olivia, she hadn’t spoken, I’m not sure I’d even seen her blink.

  I know they said she could be in shock, but this image of her, it was destroying me.

  I grip her hand tightly in mine, finally, she diverts her eyes to mine.

  “Promise me you’ll come back to me Liv, I can’t lose you. Promise me, baby.”

  I feel my throat burning with every word I speak.

  But then her hand twitches and I loosen my grip, she flexes her pinkie finger out as she struggles to whisper.

  “Pinkie promise.”

  Her eyes instantly close and her finger around mine goes slack. There’s a lot of movements surrounding us and before I can even register what has happened I hear the doctor call out.

  “She’s out again, we need to move.”

  ∞

  I fucking hate Hospitals.

  You can’t tell how much time passes when you’re sitting in a waiting room.

  It could have been minutes or hours but this whole time It’s felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest.

  The stark white interior wasn’t doing anything to stop my imagination from running away from me either. I kept flashing back to images of Olivia laying on the fucking floor with blood pooled around her.

  A nurse had come out and told me she was in surgery and they would come and speak to me if there were any updates.

  I have no fucking clue how long ago that was.

  “JACKSON, WHERE IS SHE?” Cooper's voice booms into the room.

  His eyes were glassy and bloodshot. He stalks towards where I sit in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. As soon as he reaches me he pulls me up by my shirt and cocks his fist back, clocking me straight in the jaw.

  I don’t react, I can’t, Instead, I welcome the fucking pain.

  But Tony rushes up behind Cooper pulling him back from me.

  I raise my hand to my jaw, rubbing at the ache.

  “They’ve taken her through to surgery. She lost a lot of blood. She was unconscious when they took her away.” I offer numbly, knowing it won’t help to calm down his frantic thoughts.

  He drops his chin to his chest, heaving in a breath before shaking Tony off him and standing up straighter.

  “You promised me you would never let her get hurt…” he shakes his head at me, the anger and pain rolling off of him.

  When he looks back to me, I can see that same panic I feel, hiding behind his hardened features.

  “If she doesn’t make it out of this I will never forgive you, Jackson. If my sister doesn’t make it through…” he doesn’t finish his sentence, just turns and stalks out of the room.

  Leaving me to slump back into the chair, pulling my hands through my hair roughly.

  “FUCK!” I shout into the room. Kicking the table in front of me and sending everything on it flying.

  Tony sat with me after that, he didn’t talk
or try to make me feel better. He just sat beside me, staring off into the room.

  Jackson came back in five minutes ago, sitting down beside us; not attempting to speak either. All three of us had no idea what to do or say.

  Olivia meant something to each and every one of us. She was Coop's baby sister, he’d grown up with her and shared a childhood and memories.

  Tony had grown to care about her just the same, she managed to bring him out of his shell, he seemed like a happier version of himself since she’d been around.

  And me, she was my everything.

  “I’m her big brother, I am supposed to protect her from pain. I feel like I’m never fucking there when she needs me.” Cooper grumbles out beside me.

  Shifting to rest his head in his hands. I heave a sigh and match his admission with my own.

  “It’s my fault, all of this is my fault. She wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for me.” I admit out loud the one thought that had been running through my head on a continuous loop.

  If I hadn’t given Victoria the wrong idea that we were ever going to be more if I hadn’t of insisted that Olivia be by my side all the time. And fuck, the times I didn’t insist on it, I’d left her by herself.

  This was all on me, Olivia had gotten hurt because of me.

  “Liv would kick both of your arses if she heard you blaming yourselves right now,” Tony announces to us.

  I barely smirk as Coop lets out a tight chuckle. Tony was right, she would be pulling us in to line quick smart, giving us all the reasons why we were wrong and she was right.

  “Livvie would never want you to blame yourself, Jackson. This wasn’t your fault. This was Victoria’s doing” he snaps.

  I hadn’t let myself go down the road of the anger I was feeling towards Victoria.

  Instead, I was focusing on my girl. I needed to know she was going to be okay.

  “I’m sorry for hitting you… We good?” Cooper holds his hand out to me, I shake it without hesitation.

  “We’re good.”

  ∞

  “Family of Olivia Matthews?” A middle-aged man in a white coat calls out as he walks into the room.

  All three of us stand up instantly moving over to him and away from the police, who were trying to get any information regarding what had happened.

  “Olivia Matthews?” he confirms as we nod, wanting to know any news.

  “Right, well she’s out of surgery but she’s not out of the woods. It was touch and go there, Olivia lost a lot of blood. She has some broken ribs and she took a pretty bad knock to the head. Luckily for her, the bullet she took missed both her Axillary artery and Brachial artery.”

  All three of us listen intently while he continues to speak.

  “Unfortunately for her the bullet fragmented upon entry and caused some damage to the muscles and ligaments in the area. Because of this, her muscle was unable to clamp down on her major blood vessel to stop the bleed” I grip hold of the doctor's arm.

  “What does that all mean, is she going to be okay?” The doctor looks to my fierce grip on his coat and back to me, but I don’t move.

  “Olivia woke momentarily when she first came in, however paramedics in the field stated she was unconscious while they worked on her and she slipped back under before entering surgery, this can be caused due to many things and often it’s from such significant blood loss; nevertheless, with the other trauma her body has suffered and the shock it’s registered we can’t be sure.”

  I hear Cooper growl in the Doctors direction and watch on as the doc straightens up and looks us all over.

  Apparently, he’s just realized he’s standing in front of three pretty big, pretty frantic guys and he’s cottoned on to the fact that he’s not setting any of our fucking worries to rest.

  “She is a young and healthy girl outside of this. So we expect her to make a full recovery, however, we will continue to closely monitor her and push through a course of antibiotics to stop any infections from taking up in her body.”

  I relax my grip on his arm a little.

  “For now she is in the ICU, she has been under sedation, and we are pushing pain medication via an IV that can also make her tired and groggy. So for right now, it is a wait and see scenario…”

  It was good news, but I still felt like there was a heavy weight resting on my chest. He informed us that we could go and see her briefly but that the visiting hours were over. So we would have a few minutes before we would have to leave and come back in the morning.

  Little did the Doctor know, I wasn’t going anywhere without her.

  As soon as I pushed open the door, I felt a burning sensation in my eyes.

  Liv was laid up in the hospital bed, machines beeping away beside her, cords running all over the place.

  Stepping Closer I could see her heavily bandaged shoulder beneath the thin hospital gown that was strewn over her small body. The side of her head was a vibrant purple and black already.

  Her ribs were covered with the hospital blanket, but I knew she was sporting some broken ones. Moving closer to the bed and up to her side.

  Drifting my hands out to her hair, tucking the lone strands behind her ear.

  “Baby, I’m so sorry” I whisper to her, begging her to believe my sincerity.

  Coop and Tony had stayed for a few minutes. Tony hadn’t spoken but he’d gripped her hand for a few moments before moving to wait outside.

  When Cooper had lent in and rested his forehead on hers I felt like I was invading their privacy, unfortunately, he was going to have to get used to it.

  I didn’t plan on going anywhere. When the nurse had come into the room and advised us that Visiting hours were over, she’d taken one look at my determined face, breathed out a grumble before telling me to stay out the nurses’ way.

  Too which I agreed to do wholeheartedly.

  “It’s been 36 hours” I grumble over to Nurse Megan.

  She was the same nurse who had been on Olivia’s care roster the most. She’d regularly been coming by to check on Olivia. To take her OBS. She must have been around my age, slightly younger maybe.

  She was pretty, sure, but what I liked about her wasn’t anything about her appearance. No, it was that she was always making sure Liv was comfortable. Coming and seeing her before her shift had started or before she’d leave.

  “Her body has been through a lot, just give her time Jackson.” She offered, patting my back before leaving the room.

  I get up from the chair that’s at the end of Liv’s bed and move up beside her, sitting on the edge of her mattress. Brushing my palm over her beautiful face.

  “Everyone keeps telling me that baby, but I can’t give you time. I need you to wake up, I know I fucked everything up but I need you to wake up so I can fix it, fix us.”

  I’d taken to talking to her a lot over the past day and a half.

  Nothing of any importance, it just helped to calm me down.

  “How’s she doing? Megan says you’ve not left her side. But then, I wouldn’t have expected you to.” Cooper comments as he walks through the door and into the room.

  He’d been here with her too. But unfortunately, the nurses weren’t allowing him to stay past visiting hours.

  Tony had really stepped up for us back at the office. He’d taken on almost everything of mine and Coopers. So we could focus on Olivia. He was still coming by the hospital throughout the day too, he’d bring his laptop and keep working. But he’d do it from right here in this room.

  “I need her to wake up Coop.” he looks over to the door and I spot Megan peeking through the little glass panel, he shakes his head in her direction before she offers a sad smile and walks away.

  “I spoke to my father today, told him everything that happened. He should be here late tonight.” I nod at his words, not looking away from Olivia's bruised face.

  I knew it must have been hard for Coop to talk to his father after everything, hell I wasn’t even sure I wanted him anywhere near he
r.

  But he was her father and I wanted to believe for Olivia's sake that some part of him wanted to be here with her for the right reasons.

  “She’s going to wake up Jack” he finally responds to my earlier remark.

  I lean down towards her and lay my lips against her forehead before pulling back.