I gawked a moment longer before I shook my head. “But that was just so…cool.”
Mason’s proud grin was instant. His eyes flashed with heat and he stepped toward me as if he wanted to do a little celebratory kissing.
But, of course, simply hitting the bad guys never kept them down.
One second, my wonderful, amazing, spider-killing, stalker-punching, ex-gigolo soul mate was shifting toward me, looking like he wanted to take me against the wall of the school’s hallway. The next, he noticed something on the floor. His face contorted in horror, and he shoved me—yes, shoved me—aside before he dove on top of Jeremy.
I stumbled into the wall, taken aback. When I steadied myself enough to focus on the two guys rolling across the floor in a tangle of arms and legs, I was so shocked to watch them actually wrestling I didn’t see what they were wrestling for until someone yelled, “Gun!”
Pandemonium reigned. Girls screamed. People scattered. And a stampede ensued. I was jostled back against the wall as a horde of students torpedoed past me. Crying out Mason’s name in fear for his life, I fought the flow of fleeing traffic to reach him.
God, I was so stupid. I should’ve known Jeremy would be armed and dangerous. And since his knife hadn’t done the trick the last time he’d gone after me, he’d pulled out the big guns this round—literally. Okay, honestly, it was kind of a small handgun he and Mason were fighting over. But I’m sure it still had the capacity to kill a person just as dead as a big gun could.
As soon as a path cleared for me to shove away from the wall, I scrambled toward the wrestling, grunting, swearing men on the floor. No one else had jumped in to assist Mason, so I decided I would, even though my heart was pounding in my chest.
But they were moving so much, constantly struggling to best the other, I had no idea how to help without getting in the way.
About to have a conniption fit, I cried out Mason’s name.
Big mistake.
My hysterical voice took his attention away from the psycho under him, and he glanced my way…just as the gun went off.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I paced the corridor of the hospital, ready to crawl out of my own skin. I hated waiting.
Why was this taking so long?
Did patching up bullet holes really take so freaking long? Or had the injury been worse than what people were telling me?
I rubbed the sides of my arms, so antsy and full of pent-up fear I wanted to scratch the wicked, terrifying sensation out of me with my bare claws.
“Miss Nolan, er, Randall, er…”
I whirled toward the approaching police officer. “Just Reese,” I assured him with a tense smile. “Did you question Jeremy yet? Do you know how he found me?”
I’d asked this same question earlier when he’d taken my initial statement, but at that point, no one had talked to Jeremy yet.
The officer—Mikrut, I think his name was—nodded. “Mr. Walden confessed that he tracked you through the phone bills he found in your parents’ house when he broke in recently. It took him a few days to get a computer techno friend to trace the extra line to you in Florida, and then it took him another couple of days to drive here. From the gas station receipts we found in his car, I believe he’s been in Waterford for at least seventy-two hours.”
I shivered. That meant he’d already been here when Mrs. Garrison had blackmailed Mason. And he’d been here when Mason and I had hooked up.
Shaking my head, I buried my face in my hands. “So, it didn’t matter that I moved halfway across the country, that I changed my—”
A comforting hand landed on my shoulder. “You won’t have to worry about him again. Not for a long time.”
With a snort, I lifted my face and sent him a disbelieving sneer. “Yeah, until his daddy gets this trial dropped too.”
Officer Mikrut shook his head. “Not after everything he did today.”
I blew out a breath. “So that gives me what…?”
“Let’s see. Two counts of attempted murder. Firing a weapon in a public school. Breaking and entering. Resisting arrest. I’d say…twenty to thirty years?” The cop shrugged.
I liked that guess. “Thank God.”
He smiled. “Have the doctors come out with an update yet? I really need to question—”
“No.” I shook my head savagely, not wanting to think about why it might be taking the doctor, or nurse, or anyone, so long to come back with an update. “Not yet.”
“Don’t worry so much,” he told me with a soft smile. “I’ve seen people pull through with wounds much worse than this one. I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Thanks.” I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced.
Officer Mikrut drifted away to speak to a nurse. I hoped he got more information than I’d been getting. Feeling drained, I slumped onto the nearest bench in the quiet hospital hall just outside the stuffy waiting room and rested my head against the wall.