Because of Kian (20 page)

• End of All Days ~ Thirty Seconds to Mars
  

Kian

Sirens.

Police bursting through the door.

A few more
shots rang out in Brynn’s small living room. I wasn’t sure how many. Two, maybe three.

The
commotion around me was muffled. It was there, but distant somehow. I could only feel Brynn’s limp body in my arms. The blood seeping forth, soaking into my clothing.

The
life slipping right out of her.

“Stay with me, baby,” I breathed against her forehead. “Don’t leave me now.”

Her thready breathing barely existed as I held her tightly, pressing my hand firmly against the frightening wound on her chest, anything I could to stem the warm flow of blood that oozed steadily from her body.

Fuck.

God no.

“Sir, are you hurt?” a faceless badge asked me.

“Fine, but she’s hurt. Help her…” My voice choked and trailed off.

“Paramedics are pulling up r
ight now, sir,” came the reply. The officer knelt beside me and pressed his fingers to the pulse point at her throat, then reached down to his radio and barked something about a faint pulse and shortness of breath.

And to hurry and get their asses inside.

Moments later, the EMTs quickly rushed into the room with a gurney and pulled her from my arms. Like my soul was being ripped away. Cold and shaking, I stood, willing them to heal her. Willing her to open her eyes. To tease me or flirt with me or fight with me. Something. Anything.

She looked
so pale as they packed the bloody injury and slipped an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. So still.

Fuck
.

No.

God no.

This couldn’t be happening.

“What’s your name, sir?” another officer said, trying to draw me away as they raised the stretcher.

“Kian,” I whispered in a pained voice.

The officer began to put a hand to my shoulder. “You look like you might be injured, too.”

I
stepped back quickly, wobbled a little on my feet with a lightheaded sensation, and looked back at him. “It’s her blood,” I growled sullenly. “She’s the one who got shot. I couldn’t stop… fuck… I couldn’t protect her.” I shook my head fiercely and followed the EMTs as they took Brynn out the door towards the ambulance.

“What’s her name?” a young female EMT asked me as they secured
her for the drive to the hospital.

“Brynn… Brynn Ashton.”

“We’ll take good care of her, sir. We’re taking her to St. Thomas Hospital and can meet you there.”

“I’m going with you,” I snarled. I couldn’t let her out of my sight
.

She peered down through the darkness at the blood all over my shirt, smeared all over my jacket
.

“Do you need—
” she began.

“No, you worry about her. Not me. I’m fine.”

With a nod, she moved further into the ambulance and gestured to a small seat she’d just vacated. “You can sit here. But you have to sit back and let us work on her or she may not make it to the hospital.”

My knees nearly gave out and
all the air rushed from my lungs. I steadied myself against the vehicle and nodded. I’d barely crawled up into the seat when Sage’s voice rang through the air.

“Kian!
Oh my God, what happened?” Her eyes were wide as she ran to the open doors of the ambulance and looked inside at Brynn lying supine on the gurney.

An officer appeared at her side and attempted to guide her away. “There’s been an accident, ma’am, and the
y need to get her to a hospital right away.”

“
Oh God. I’ll meet you there!” she cried.

“I’ll take you in my car,” the officer stated. “We’ll follow behind the ambulance, and maybe you can help give me a little information.” He
swung the doors closed, and the ambulance quickly pulled away, sirens blaring through the night.

I
t felt like forever before we reached the emergency room. Everything blurred around me. Doctors and nurses murmured down distant hallways before someone told me there was a bullet lodged just inside her ribs, close to her heart. She’d sustained a great deal of tissue damage, and the procedure to repair it would take some time. A gentle young nurse with a badge that said
Ashley
handed me a blanket to wrap up in.

“Let me show you to the surgical waiting room. They’re taking her up to
the operating room, and it might be a little while before we know anything.”

I nodded and followed her stiffly, clutching the blanket to my chest
, wishing it was my girl but needing something to hold. As she turned to leave, the woman glanced back and studied my expression.

“Sir, are you—”

“I just need her to be okay,” I ground out.

T
he wait.

The fu
cking wait was killing me.

Sage showed up
not long after I got in there, and she tucked the blanket around my shoulders.

“Kian, are you sure you’re not hurt?”

If one more person asked how I was feeling, I was going to explode. “I’m fine, Sage,” I whispered harshly. “I’m fine and she could die. That is just… So. Fucking. Wrong.”

“
But, Kian, you just—” she began again.

“
It’s her blood, Sage. I’m covered in Brynn’s blood. I’m gonna kill that motherfucker,” I ground out, the hatred in me building as I thought of Evan. His hands on Brynn. The bruise on her cheek. All the shit he’d put her through. And pulling a fucking gun. “I tried, Sage… I tried to… fuck…” My voice cracked and I couldn’t speak anymore.

“
He’s dead, Kian. The officers took him down.”

I closed my eyes, steepling my fingers against my forehead, and took a deep breath. “
Thank fuck,” I growled against the tight knot building in my throat.

Kian

The doctor walked into the waiting room with a grim expression on her face.

“Mr.
Tierney?” She looked uncertain.

I nodded
.

“Miss
Ashton has been very badly injured. We’ve done what we can. It’s up to her at this point. Her body may come out of this, but her chances… well, it’s just really hard to say at this point.”

I couldn’t breathe. My heart was pounding in my chest, suffocating me.
The words faintly registered as Sage asked the question I couldn’t bear to voice, “But she’s alive? Right?”

“Yeah,” the doctor replied. “
However, she’s in critical condition. The next couple hours will tell us a lot. She lost a lot of blood, and the bullet hit in a weird angle. However, up and over a little, and it would have landed in her heart.”

The world tilted around me and everything began to blur
as I dropped the blanket and staggered back towards the chair behind me. Grasping for purchase around me, I collapsed to the floor.

The last thing I heard was the doctor
’s exclamation. “Oh my God. He’s bleeding, too. Ashley, get a gurney! This man’s also been shot!”

And then everything
went black.

• Tears in Heaven ~ Eric Clapton
  

Kian

I awoke with a jolt, in a quiet room, a
n unfamiliar nurse leaning over me and gliding a thermometer across my forehead.

“Where is she?” I asked quietly, my voice scratchy.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she smiled.

“Where is she? Where is Brynn, dammit?”

“Sir, just lie back—”

I
sprang into action without thinking, rolling away from her as I clumsily climbed from the bed. The left side of my ribs felt like they were on fire, and it was hard to breathe.

But I had to find her
.

“Sir, please!” the nurse cried as I stumbled from the room towards a nearby nursing station
.

The nurse named Ashley from the night before
frowned at me as she stood behind the desk. “Mr. Tierney, you need to go lie down.”

“I need to find her,” I wheezed.

“Kian?”

Sage’s voice.
That sounded like Sage.
As I whirled around, I tried to ignore the dizziness that swept through me. She was walking down the hall towards me, a painfully worried expression on her face.

“Sage, they won’t tell me where she is. Fuck, I’ve gotta find her.”

She looked over at the nurses. “Please, can we take him to her? I’m worried he’s going to hurt himself even worse.”

“Fuck, Sage,” I growled. “I’m not hurt. Brynn—”

“Actually, Kian,” she interrupted, “you got shot, too. Twice… one bullet lodged in your shoulder. The other ripped through your ribs before it hit Brynn.”

I
ran my hand down my chest, feeling the thick bandages underneath my hospital gown. They wrapped up over the right side of my torso.

Where the fuck did those come from?

“You saved her…” she whispered. Training her gaze back on the nurses, she pleaded, “Can he see her? Please… if she doesn’t make it…” Sage’s voice trailed off and my guts twisted at the thought.

Nurse Ashley
turned to the younger one with pursed lips. “We probably shouldn’t,” she grumbled, “but get him a wheelchair. I don’t want him fainting.”

Kian

The first sight of her was heartbreaking. So still, pale. Beeping machines and IVs.

“The good news is,”
Nurse Ashley said, “she is breathing on her own. Well enough to be extubated.”

I felt Sage’s hand on my shoulder
.

I felt a stabbing pain in my chest.

I felt helpless.

“She’s very weak, but so far there are no signs of infection.”
She clicked through the computer for a moment, looking through Brynn’s vitals and then turned to leave. “It’s very quiet, so you can stay here for a while. Talk to her, sir. We don’t really know if she can hear you, but, in my heart, I do think it helps.”

Sage took a deep breath and patted my arm gently. “I have to go get
Mattie pretty soon. Can I stop somewhere and get you something? Call someone?”

I could only shake my head. I couldn’t speak, and I sure as hell couldn’t take my eyes off my
sweet Brynn lying there, so…
lifeless
.

Sage pushed
my wheelchair up to the edge of the bed, then pulled a slip of paper out of her purse, scribbling on it before handing it to me. “I’ll stop back by in the morning when Mattie goes to preschool. Here’s my number, so call if you need anything,” she said softly and looked over at Brynn, “or if anything changes.”

I nodded as my hand gently caressed the smooth warmth of Brynn’s cheek. As the door closed behind Sage, I bowed my head to Brynn’s arm where it lay beside her on the bed
.

This was all so fucked up. She shouldn’t be here. I hadn’t saved her.

My eyes burned. A choking sensation caught at my throat. Resting my head on her arm, I fought to take a deep breath.

And there it was.
Barely.

The tiniest whiff of Hawaii
faintly on her skin.

My body shook as I thought of all she
’d become to me. Her laugh. Her crazy driving. Her soft voice. The smile that lit her face when she saw me. The scowl when she was pissed at me. The way her arms clasped tightly around my waist on my bike. Her fingers in my hair, on my skin.

“You can’t leave me now, Brynn,” I whispered. “You can’t…” My voice caught in my throat and my eyes watered.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I promised I’d keep you safe, and I didn’t.” Part of me felt like an ass, sitting here talking to her while she was essentially comatose. But I had to tell her. She had to know how much I needed her. “I know I scared you. I made you run. I swear to God, I’ll never ever let you go like that again. I’m staying right here until you wake up and look at me. And then I’ll keep you with me. We’ll work through it together. You have to come back to me. You have to.”

I sat there for so long, breathing in the air around her.
My cheek resting on her warm little arm. For a while I dozed off, comforted by the occasional beeping and clicking of the machines. Those sounds meant she hadn’t left me.

At one point,
Nurse Ashley came back into the room and nudged my shoulder. “Mr. Tierney, you should head back to your room and get some rest.”

I shook my head. “No… I’m not leaving her. I promised. I promised I wouldn’t leave her.”

“You need to heal yourself, too.”

I glowered up at her. “You try to make me
leave, I’m going to lose my fucking mind. I’ll rip out every one of my stitches and you’ll have to fucking sedate me to get me out of here.”

Her
expression softened some.

God, please let her allow me to stay
.

“
At the very least, sit in the recliner. I’ll get you a warm blanket, and you can rest in here… beside her.”

“Thank you,” I hoarsely choked out.

And a short while later, I hunkered down in a recliner so close to Brynn. Barely a foot away, close enough to touch her. And I dozed.