I didn’t look.
I shook Deke’s head and demanded, “Stick with me. Stick with me, baby. Stick with me, goddammit.”
His eyes slowly opened.
“Justice,” Chace said.
“Wither to dust,” Deke whispered.
No.
Nonononono.
No.
My nose stung, my eyes filled with wet.
“No,” I bit out. “You’re with me. Stay with me.”
“Ambulance, immediately. Man down at ninety-seven Ponderosa Road. Get them here now,” Chace bit out.
“Do it at your side, gypsy,” Deke said softly, his voice fading.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes, honey. Yes. Wither to dust. At my side.”
“Yeah,” he breathed out.
His eyes closed.
“Deke,” I called.
“Jussy, roll off, let us get in,” Chace said, hand on my shoulder.
I ignored Chace, shook Deke’s head, called out, “Baby.”
“Jussy, need you to roll off, sweetheart.”
I shook Deke’s head again.
His eyes stayed closed.
“Deke!” I shrieked.
His eyes stayed closed.
Chace pulled me off, up, into his arms.
I struggled and screamed.
But fucking fuck, he was stronger than me.
Two officers went in and worked on him.
I kept struggling.
The ambulance came.
I got my shit together so they wouldn’t think I’d lost it and they’d let me ride with him.
It didn’t matter. Chace made them let me ride with him.
So, rushing out behind the gurney still pulling on my boots, I rode with him.
They took him from me at the hospital.
The whole time going there, they worked, they did it urgently, the words they said to each other and in their radios I blocked out because I could feel it.
I could feel it.
And Deke didn’t open his eyes.
*
Tate
Tate heard the woman screaming the minute he hit the doors of the emergency room.
It sounded nothing like her.
He still knew it was Justice.
His stomach dropped for the second time that night, the first one happening when he got the call from Chace.
Pulling his wife with him, feeling Jonas at his heels, with fast strides, he moved to the noise and stopped dead, his woman at his side, when he saw Justice, covered in blood, cornered, eyes wild, mouth a snarl, squaring off against three members of the hospital staff.
“Sir, please move away,” one of them said, catching Lauren, Jonas and Tate there.
“We’re friends of hers,” Tate told him.
“Tell them to get away,” Justice snapped. “Tate, tell them to leave me alone.”
Tate looked to Justice.
“They want to clean my hands,” she bit at him. “They want to take him from me. They don’t get him. I’m keeping him.” She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I’m keeping him until they give him back to me.”
He heard Laurie make a noise, felt her make a move but he looked down at her and shook his head.
“She needs to get cleaned up, sir, and she needs a sedative. She was there when—” one of the staffers started.
“Leave me with her,” Tate ordered.
“She’s exhibited signs she might get violent,” the man went on.
Tate spared him a glance and clipped, “Leave her with me.”
Tate felt the man’s gaze. He hesitated, but backed off, though only a couple of steps, the other two following.
Tate went to a standing gurney not close to Justice but closer than he’d been.
He hauled his ass up on it, opened his thighs, doing all this eyes locked on Justice.
When he got there, he said gently, “C’mere, Jussy.”
“Don’t make me wash him away, Tate,” she snapped.
“Honey, come here.”
“I’m keeping him with me,” she shot back.
“Jussy, right now, where would Deke want you to be?” he asked. “Who would he want minding you? Tell me.”
She did a shuffle step away from him, turning her shoulder, keeping eye contact over it.
Fuck, she was fucked up, in shock, way beyond tweaked.
“Deke was here right now, Jussy, who would he want taking care of you?” Tate asked quietly.
She hesitated, looked around, took in the staffers, Lauren, Jonas, then back to him when she answered, “You.”
“Yeah. Me. Now c’mere.”
Another shuffle step, this one toward him. And another.
Then she turned fully to him. Ducking her head, her long hair falling down either side, she hit him head first, right at his collarbone, and drove in.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Lauren got close behind Justice, lifted her hand, hesitated, looked at her man and Tate gave her a short nod. Jonas just got near, and when Tate glanced at him, he saw his boy’s eyes locked to his old man.
Laurie moved in closer and started stroking Justice’s hair.
Her touch set Justice to talking.
“I don’t know if I did wrong. He told me to run. But I heard gunshots. I called Chace. But Deke was in there. Unarmed. They had guns. And I wanted him to have his gun.”
“You didn’t do wrong,” Tate said, not knowing what went down, if what he said was a lie, or the truth.
What it was was what she needed to hear right then.