Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78093 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Ava whimpers into my chest. I move us down the hall and closer to the landing that opens up into the foyer. Releasing Ava, I go to maneuver her behind me, but she catches me off guard and bolts for the landing, reaching it before I can stop her. My heart leaps into my throat when my eyes catch on the scene taking place in the foyer below us.
“Dad,” Ava croaks and starts down the steps.
Watching her walk away from me and toward her father somehow feels like the end. Once she reaches the second to last step, I spring into action.
“Sweettthearrrttt…” Greg slurs, his eyes are bloodshot, and I can smell the whiskey on his breath across the room.
The barrel of the gun catches in the light as he whirls it around, and somehow, all I can see is his finger on the trigger. Time stands still but also moves a million miles a minute. At the same time I reach for Ava, my hands grabbing onto her shirt pulling her into my chest and turning to shift her so she’s behind me, the blasting of a gunshot rings out through the air. I don’t even feel the bullet enter my back, lodging itself deep inside the skin.
All I feel is heat, searing, burning outward from the wound. My lungs deflate, like a balloon. I sag against Ava, barely keeping myself upright, my knees knock together as Laura and my father both lunge forward at the same time but in different directions.
My father tackles Greg while Laura throws her arms around me and Ava like she could somehow shield us with her tiny body.
“Oh my God, Vance is shot,” Ava yells. “Call 9-1-1!”
Staggering backward, I manage to sit down on the bottom step of the stairs, refusing to let go of Ava. Greg groans on the ground only a few feet away from us with my dad holding him down on the ground. Wetness coats my skin, my t-shirt soaking it up.
“Laura, you need to call an ambulance,” my dad orders, and for once, I hear fear in his voice. Letting go of Ava and me, she runs into the kitchen, only to reappear moments later with the phone already pressed to her ear. A wave of dizziness washes over me and light-headedness starts to come.
“Hello…yes, someone is shot. My ex-husband broke into our house and he had a gun and my stepson was shot…” She’s talking so fast, I’m sure the person on the other line is having trouble understanding her.
Shot. I’ve been shot.
“My husband tackled… Yes... he took the gun from him…” Laura says, looking down at Greg and my father. Swinging her gaze to me, she continues, “Yes, he is conscious…but he looks really pale…and there is a lot of blood…” Laura’s eyes widen to the size of saucers. “He’s bleeding, there’s… Yes, hurry. Please…hurry.”
Ava sits next to me, her body pressed against mine, her hands pressing over the spot that hurts the most. Forcing myself to breathe, I let her sweet floral scent fill my nostrils. My eyes drift closed, and silence settles over me.
“Don’t die, Vance, please don’t die,” she whispers in my ear over and over again. I try and lift my hand, open my mouth to soothe her, but I can’t. It’s like my mouth is full of cotton, my limbs no longer working.
“Vance…” Ava calls out to me, but the inky darkness calls to me. It pulls me under with each labored breath that passes my lips. “Vance, please don’t go to sleep. Stay awake, stay with me.” The sadness in her voice makes me want to reach out to her, to tell her it’s all going to be okay, but is it? Is it all going to be okay? I don’t know.
The wetness against my back bathes my skin. Sirens sound in the distance inching closer to where we are but somehow farther away at the same time. Like the undertow of the ocean, I’m pulled under, sinking deeper, and deeper.
“Please, Vance,” Ava pleas. “I love you, you can’t die, you can’t.”
She loves me. I force my lips to turn up into a smile. She loves me. Her words are the last thing I hear before the heaviness of the dark becomes too much to fight.
If this is the end, than it was worth it.
At least it was her voice I heard last, her touch I felt last.
◆◆◆
Darkness surrounds me for a long time, or at least it feels like it’s a long time. I’m floating somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. There’s a tightening in my chest, but it’s not pain. I don’t feel any pain and for some reason, I find that odd. I think I should feel pain, but I can’t remember why. My brain feels like it’s been thrown in a blender, a thick fog clouds my thoughts, making it hard to string together what happened.