“Who the hell’s been shot?” I ask Sterling when he comes to lean over me.
“We’re getting you out. Hold on for me.” He pulls me out and away from the warehouse by the back of my Kevlar vest.
“I’ve been hit?” A burning itch in my neck springs to life. Awareness has my hands searching to find the issue.
“Just stay calm.” Hands push mine away, revealing warm blood staining between my fingers. But still it doesn't register. Instead, my world has become the slow beat of my heart pounding in my ears. Darkness takes hold and starts to pull me away. Everything numbs. The pain. The light. The noise.
“Come on, Hetch. Stay with me.” A voice, barely a whisper now, swirls around me in a turbulence of nothingness. Time no longer anchors me to my body. Darkness is now my keeper.
“Tell Lib, I lov….” The last word becomes stuck in my mouth as my throat closes up. With each intake of air, breathing becomes harder.
Liberty in my arms. Liberty kissing me. Liberty loving me.
Every moment I’ve spent with her replays in my mind as the beat of my heart slows even more.
I’m losing her and her me.
“He’s crashing!”
Thirty-Two
Liberty
“Tell me what you want, Liberty, or you get nothing.” His words are all I need to step back and demand him to take my panties off.
“Rip my panties off.” His throat constricts, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
“Fuck, sweetheart, is that the phone?”
What the fuck? That’s not part of the dream.
The annoying ringtone of my house phone next to my head pulls me out of my dream and back to reality.
The hell?
“Seriously?” I grumble as if the rude caller can hear me and cover my head with my pillow. I’m not on call this weekend, and work rarely calls my house phone, so my guess is it's Payton. No one else I know calls this early on a Sunday morning. Deciding I’m not in the mood for her chirpy ass this morning, I try to block out the offending ringing, but it doesn’t help. She’s persistent. The phone rings again; this time, it seems louder.
With more energy than I thought possible, I reach across the bed and yank the phone from its receiver.
“Do you know how early it is, Pay?” I groan into the phone, pulling my duvet up over my head.
Normally, I would never answer her call with this much attitude, but after the dream she just interrupted, she deserves it.
Clearly, I’m mean when I’m horny.
“Liberty,” Kota’s voice replies, pulling me out of the mood. The unexpected shock of hearing her voice strips me of any lingering sleep and jolts me to life.
“Kota?” I find myself tangled in my sheets as I twist around, confusion slamming into me. I imagine I look like a fish when it’s first thrown down onto the bottom of a boat. Twisting and squirming to find freedom.
“Lib….” Her voice takes on a tone I can’t decipher, but the hair on the back of my neck stands to attention, a dizziness that makes no sense sweeping over me.
“What’s wrong?” I find my feet as dread weaves its way through my mind, like a spider weaving its web.
Slowly and meticulously.
“It’s Hetch.” Beneath my feet, the ground becomes unsteady. Or maybe it’s just me. Her words are knocking the balance from me.
“What happened?” I force my body to steady and move into action without any guidance. Ripping my nightgown up over my head, I quickly dress in the first outfit I can find.
Dark skinny jeans and one of Hetch’s old SWAT T-shirts.
“I don’t know much, just that he’s in surgery.”
“Surgery?” The ground tilts again. This time, I have to sit down. “Where are you? What happened? Is he okay? He has to be okay. He’s a fucking cop, for Christ’s sake!” Every scenario of how he ended up in surgery runs through my head.
“Liberty, you have to stay calm. Freaking out is not going to help him. We’re at the hospital. He just went in. Fox is coming to pick you up. He should be there any minute. He’s closer than me, so wait for him.” The only word I take in from her sentence is wait.
Wait?
Wait while the man I love needs me?
Is she mad?
“No, I can drive. It’s okay.” I don’t know what I’m saying. I can barely stand, let alone drive.
“Liberty, the guys don’t want you driving. Please wait for Fox.” I don’t bother answering her when a knock at my front door cancels any argument I may have.
“Doesn’t matter, he’s here. I’ll be there soon.” I hang up the phone, push my feet into a pair of flip flops, and open the door to find Fox standing there.
“Fox?” His name acts as the main question when a thousand different thoughts are running through my head.
What happened? Is he going to be okay? Tell me he’s going to be okay. Tell me we’re going to be okay.
“He was shot.” The words hit me hard, like a fucking sledgehammer to the stomach.