When my eyes met his, I could see it in his face. Terror. Pain. His hand on my shoulder grew even heavier as he stumbled forward. He coughed and blood splattered onto my dress. I looked down at the red that was spreading across his dress shirt. No. No!
It wasn’t like you see in the movies. He didn’t whisper my name and say he’d always love me. It was just fear in his eyes. A terror that had to match my own. And time didn’t slow down. If anything, it sped up.
Everyone started screaming. Sirens wailed in the distance.
“Get down!” someone shouted.
“James.” A third shot rang out and he fell to his knees, pulling me down with him. “James!” I screamed. I pressed the skirt of my dress against the wound I could see. “Somebody help him! James, stay with me.” I pressed down more firmly on his wound, but it just seemed to make it worse. His stomach was covered in blood. His arm was covered in blood. His chest was covered in blood. “Baby, please. Please.” It wasn’t desperation in my voice. It was despair. Because he was no longer looking at me. He was staring blindly at the stars.
The sparklers fizzled out as I watched the life drain out of my husband’s face. The darkness of the night seeped in around us.
PART 2
Saturday
Someone pulled me off of him.
Porter bent down over James and ripped his shirt open. I could see the hole in his stomach. I could see the hole right below his chest. There was so much blood. Porter pulled off his jacket and pressed it against both of the wounds as he put his ear to James’ chest. “Briggs!” he yelled.
Briggs released me from his grip. His hands replaced Porter’s as Porter began performing CPR.
James wasn’t breathing. This can’t be happening. I felt frozen. I kept blinking, thinking what was happening in front of me would change.
An ambulance screeched to a stop and paramedics burst out of it.
Briggs stepped out of the way of the paramedics and scanned the top of the buildings that surrounded this side of Central Park as Porter shouted instructions.
“West side,” Porter shouted. “Check the rooftops.”
Briggs cursed and took off running.
I closed my eyes. Please let me be imagining this.
“Penny,” Porter said and grabbed my arm. “Get in the ambulance. We’ll meet you at the hospital.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“You need to get in the ambulance.”
That was a no. James wasn’t going to be okay. He was dying. James was dying. Tears streamed down my face. I quickly climbed into the back of the ambulance as soon as they had lifted James into it. I watched them press down on James’ body with electrical paddles. James’ body jolted.
“James,” I whispered and squeezed his shin. “James, you can’t leave me.” I cringed when his body jolted again beneath my hand. “James, please, wake up.”
“Turn it up,” one of the paramedics said as the ambulance came to a stop outside of the hospital. His body jolted again as the doors flew open. His gurney was lifted out of the ambulance and he was rolled into the hospital.
I ran after the paramedics. A doctor leapt onto the gurney and started performing CPR as they disappeared behind swinging doors that stated personal only. I was left alone in the empty hallway, watching the doors swing until suddenly they stopped.
I fell to my knees and let myself cry. I had sensed that something was wrong earlier. If I had told James that, maybe he would have let us leave. Maybe we would have stayed inside for the rest of the evening. My thoughts flooded with maybes. I could sense that she was there somewhere. Isabella. And she was still out there. She’d rather James be dead than with me.
Someone needed to come back through the doors. Someone needed to tell me what was happening. Tears cascaded down my cheeks and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Someone needed to tell me he was okay.
“Penny.”
I shook my head.
“Penny.” Rob lifted my face so that I would look at him.
“Rob,” I sobbed and I started crying even harder.
He put his arms around me and held me. He didn’t bother telling me everything was going to be okay. We both knew that it wasn’t. He ran his hand up and down my back. It didn’t calm me down at all.
I wasn’t sure how long he held me, but eventually he pulled back. “Come with me,” he said and stood up. “Maybe someone will have an update for us.” His eyes were red too. I had never seen Rob cry before. And it made me even more unsettled. He was crying because he thought James was gone too. He was crying because he thought he had lost his brother.
I grabbed his hand and he pulled me to my feet. I turned back toward the doors James had disappeared through. Please, James. Please don’t leave me.
Rob put his arm around my shoulders and walked me toward the front desk. I stood there listening to the commotion of the emergency room as Rob was handed forms to fill out.
“No,” Rob said. “I asked how he was doing. Not this,” he said and slammed the clipboard down on the counter.
“Sir,” the woman said. “We will have someone come talk to you as soon as we know.”
“Can’t you just check?”
“That’s not my job.”
“How about you get off your ass and…”
“Rob,” Mason said and put his hand on his shoulder. “How about you sit down and let me talk to them?”
Rob ran his hand through his hair. “They won’t tell us anything.”
“Penny.” I turned around to see Bee. She was crying almost as hard as I had been. “He’s going to be okay. He has to be.”
I shook my head. She was trying. But her tears gave her away.
She immediately put her arms around me. “He’s strong. He’ll pull through.” She was one of the few people that knew just how strong James was. But her words didn’t calm me down. Nothing could make it feel like I wasn’t sinking.