Page 55 of In My Heart
“Oh God!” I gasped as I grabbed Rafe’s arm and fought to turn him over.
He was so much bigger and heavier than me, but I managed to get him onto his back. The first glimpse of the bullet wound through his abdomen had me wanting to cry and vomit in equal measure, but Rafe wasn’t moving, and thankfully logic won over panic. I reached for his neck, smearing my bloody fingers around as I searched for the feel of his pulse. Finally I found it. It didn’t feel as strong as I thought it should, but it was there.
“Rafe, wake up!” I ordered as I shrugged off the thick coat I wore and ripped off the sweater underneath.
I balled up the thin wool and pressed it as hard as I could over the oozing wound against Rafe’s abdomen, just desperate to stop the bleeding.
“Rafe!” Tears were running down my cheeks but I refused to give into my fear or panic. Rafe was not going to die.
“Cara!” I looked up and found Brax standing over me, Rafe’s other guys closing in and more appearing from behind us. “How bad?”
“Fucking bad! Get help!” I yelled.
I swiped the tears from my cheeks against my bare shoulders, not even caring that I was now in nothing but my bra on my top half. I took a deep breath and tried to think straight. This was a huge mess. The police were definitely going to be on their way, and all of Rafe’s men seemed to be armed.
“Joey!” I looked up to the only other guy I knew by name as Brax ran inside the hospital for help. “The police…we have to get rid of the guns and the…there can’t be this many men here. We have toclear this place out fast,” I ordered, just trying to do what I could to minimise the damage and think straight.
“She’s right,” Joey spoke up. “Clean up fast. We’ve got no cameras down here, so get rid of the bodies. Where’s their car?”
The rest was drowned out as all of Rafe’s men started to move. Only Joey stayed at my side. I returned my focus to Rafe, who’s skin looked a sickly shade of grey. The blood was still pooling around him, finding its way out under my hands, no matter how hard I pressed down with everything I had.
Brax returned with doctors and nurses and I was pulled away from Rafe by Joey and Brax. One of them wrapped me in my coat, but I didn’t notice more than that. All I could do was stare at my brother and the people fighting to save his life.
As they rushed him away on a gurney, I followed numbly, my blood soaked hands clutched in front of me as Brax and Joey kept me moving between them, covering me as much as they could with my coat which kept on slipping off. I knew I needed to put my arms in it, and move faster. I needed to be with Rafe, but I felt like I was frozen with the fear of my brother never opening his eyes ever again.
***
We were shown into a waiting room on the surgical floor. Rafe was in surgery. I asked the nurse if he was going to live, but she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me.
I sat in a chair in a tiny waiting room, a window beside me, bright posters all around the sickly blue coloured space. The police came, but I didn’t say a word as they asked me questions. Brax told them I was in shock and offered to give a statementfor the time being. He disappeared and then Joey was there, sat opposite me. I don’t know if he spoke to me or not.
Everything around me felt like a blur. The sounds blended into one. The light was too bright; the room, too cold. I felt like I should be crying, or screaming. Maybe I should pray?
Wasn’t that what people did in such awful situations? But I didn’t believe in God – not when he clearly didn’t believe in me. My body was shaking. I remember thinking that because the chair beneath me shook too, but I barely felt it. I was just numb, and maybe that was for the best.
“Cara?”
I lowered my eyes down from the stupid poster about patient feedback, and found Arran crouched before me. One of his big hands covered my left knee while the other pushed wild strands of my hair back behind my ears. I hadn’t even felt him touching me.
“There ye are, wee one. Are ye hurt?” he asked softly.
It took me way too long to process the question, but eventually I shook my head. I wasn’t hurt – not in the way he meant.
“She hasn’t spoken a word since we were forced to drag her away from Rafe, so the doctor could get closer,” Joey spoke, and his unfamiliar voice startled me. I looked up past Arran and found him standing against the wall opposite me.
“Wait outside now, lad. No one gets in this room wi’out verifying their ID,” Arran rumbled, then Joey was gone, the door snicking closed behind him.
“D-do you know…Rafe…is he…?” I whispered, the words coming out shaky and broken.
“He’s still in surgery, lass. Dario’s tryin’ to get an update,” Arran assured me.
I nodded, then returned my gaze to the stupid poster again. My patient feedback was that this hospital was bullshit at communicating with me! I just needed someone to tell me Rafe would live. He had to. I’d already lost Gia. Rafe was all I had left.
Arran was talking to me again. I could feel his hands trying to comfort me, holding my limp hand, then tightening my coat around me when he got no response. I think he sat at my side at some point.
When Dio walked into the room, sometime later, I turned to look at him, wanting to know about Rafe, but when he only told us the doctor would come in with an update as soon as they could, my gaze returned to that poster, reading the words over and over again. It was the only thing I could make myself focus on. Everything else was too terrifying.
Dio tried then. I felt his hand on my thigh as he sat beside me, felt his fingers running through my hair, but still I stared at that poster, reading the words blindly, and willing Rafe not to die, over and over and over again in my frazzled, numb mind.
