SIX (28 page)

“Because it didn’t feel real. It was so far back in my head because this life you offered me was everything—is everything to me, and I didn’t want you to ever know. I’m ashamed.

Knowing…hearing Haley talk about what they did to her was so painful, I could never hurt a woman and I was associated with these fucking animals.

And here I am, on the floor with a gun to my head.” He swipes at a fallen tear.

“Guilty by association. It wouldn’t have mattered when or if I told you, I would have ended up here either way.”

Reaching out, he pulls my hand to his head, the gun digging into his forehead.

“If you don’t do it, they’ll come for me anyway.”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Six,” Jude shouts, taking a step closer.

“They can’t come for you. There is no them anymore.”

“I didn’t hear that,” Jude announces.

“Lucky Number Seven,” I tut, pulling the trigger.

A bang rings out, piercing my ear, and a red hot burning sensation radiates through my shoulder.

“Fuck!” I roar. “You shot me.” I turn to Jude, who’s still pointing his gun at me and staring at the hole in my shoulder.

“You shot me,” Lucky barks. “Why am I not dead?” He taps his hands all over his body, patting himself down.

“Because I shot you in the leg.”

His brow creases in confusion and then his eyes follow mine to the oozing of blood from the bullet hole in his thigh.

“Argh, you shot me. There’s a hole.” He points to the blood.

“I figured if I shot you in the leg and didn’t hit an artery, you really were Lucky Number Seven.” I smirk.

“What if you did hit an artery?” he bellows, holding his leg hole.

“Then you’d be dead and pretty unlucky,” I say with a head jerk, gesturing to his wound.

“You both need the hospital, and good luck explaining this shit to Jimmy.”

Jude shakes his head.

“How can you be casual about the fact that you shot me? I can’t believe you had it in you,” I humph.

“You fatally underestimated me.” Jude smirks.

I pin him with a mocking glare, and point to my shoulder. “Not fatally, you prick, I’m still breathing.”

“Well, you may not be if we don’t get you to the hospital.”

“Fuck the hospital. Just pick out the bullet and sew me up,” I tell him, taking a step toward him.

“You’re crazier than we all think if you believe that’s going to happen,” he shouts, stepping back.

“I need the hospital. I’m dying. There’s a hole in my leg,” Lucky whimpers, throwing his body back so he’s lying completely flat on the ground, like a little bitch.

“Call an ambulance or something,” he shouts at me, but my mind’s already left him and the shop.

I have guns I need to get rid of and the truck is going to have to go, along with these clothes.

I’m an echo of my former self.

Refusing to get out of bed, Parker brings me food, but my appetite left when Six did. “Just pull the plug,” I growl into the pillow.

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s been a week, Mist, you need to stop being a hermit, and for the love of soap, please shower.”

“I can’t,” I sob, screaming into the pillow that still carries his lingering scent.

I slept in one of his shirts the first night he left and it seeped into the fabric. Sleeping in week-old bed sheets is so disgusting, but I’m afraid if I wash them, I’ll forget what he smells like.

What a pathetic excuse for a woman I’ve become.

I’m a pitiful heap and living in a tomb—Haley’s tomb.

I need to get out of here.

“Has he called?” I peek up from beneath the covers.

She sighs and flicks a strand of hair from my wet cheek.

“No, nothing, and he doesn’t deserve to have you waiting for him. You’re not living, Mist. You barely exist and you’ve lost too much weight and it’s only been a week. Let me do your hair and feed you.”

“What’s wrong with my hair?” I croak, and we both burst into a fit of hysterics.

I haven’t brushed my hair in God knows how long and it’s greasy and wet from my tears.

Refusing to look in the mirror, I slip from the bed and take a hot shower.

The water washes away the sweat and agony of my sorrow.

How could he leave me? I can’t breathe without him and just goes on living—
is he living?
That thought process causes me to fade into the shadows.

He doesn’t love me. Maybe he never loved me, or maybe Haley took all the love he had with her when she killed herself.

Parker’s such a great friend.

I’m going to miss her when I leave.

Staying here isn’t an option for me.

I’d never get over him leaving and if he came back, I wouldn’t be able to cope and go back through the old routine of him pretending I’m nothing to him.

It would kill me from the inside out.

I dry my skin mechanically and slip into some sweats and a t-shirt.

Combing through my hair, I walk back through to the bedroom.

“You look better already,” she beams

“I’ll be okay.”

“Ready to come back to work?”

“I’m not coming back.” I fold my arms around my waist to try to hold myself together.

“I’m going to go stay with my aunt for a little while until I figure things out.”

She sits and crosses her legs.

“You don’t even like your aunt. Don’t let him do this to you. You have people here who care about you.”

She’s so sweet. Being away from Parker might be the hardest part in all of this, but I can’t stay.

I just can’t put myself through the pain of being around Six or even chancing it.

It will rot my spirit. “We can stay in touch.”

A popping sound rings out and Parker leaps to her feet, breathing, “That sounded like gunfire.”

Acid swirls in my stomach. “It could have been a car backfiring.”

“It wasn’t.” She rushes out the door and I chase behind her.

“Stop running toward gun shots, Parker,” I whisper-shout, my nerves chewing away at my muscles, making them seize and go weak.

“Lucky’s in the shop,” she hushes out, terror darkening her eyes.

My mind fires off scenarios that could be happening and all that keeps repeating is have they come for Six?

He’s been gone a week, no contact, not even a text to tell me he’s alive.

Maybe he’s not

I will away those thoughts and creep into the bar with Parker.

With Six not being here and everything that happened with Haley, we closed the bar.

I couldn’t face continuing to run his business when I didn’t know if he was ever going to come home.

It hurt to be in here.

It hurt to be in the apartment.

It hurt to be alive.

Parker grabs a bat she keeps under the cash register and a hollow pit inside my stomach drags the rest of me into it.

I’ve seen this exact situation play out in movies.

I’ve screamed at the screen when the damsels run toward the danger—the murderer—instead of doing the sane thing and getting the hell out of dodge.

Lucky better be okay and cracking jokes, mocking us both about this for years to come.
Please be okay.

Raised voices and bickering fills the air.

My heart thunders in my chest when Six’s distinctive voice pierces my ears. Parker peeks through the window and drops the bat, gasping.

She pushes through the door and my chest tightens, my lungs constricting, making breathing impossible.

Am I having a heart attack in my twenties?

The door swings shut on Parker and I’m left in the bar looking through the window at Six staring back at me.

His mouth moves to form my name and then his eyes roll and his huge frame crashes to the ground.

Before I realize what’s happening, I’m running through the door.

“Call an ambulance,” I shout to Jude before skidding to where Six lays unconscious.

He’s out cold and bleeding.

Jude stares down at us, his eyes expanding and mouth open while I become frantic, trying to find the exit hole, stop the bleeding—do something.

“It was in the shoulder,” Lucky says for the third time while Parker screeches at him, demanding he tell her what happened.

My eyes wander over to Lucky in a disoriented haze while I apply pressure to Six’s shoulder, but there’s so much blood, I can’t find the wound through tears clouding my vision.

Blood stains Lucky’s jeans and puddles beneath his leg.

Fear clouds around me and my attempts to help anyone become useless as the fog continues to take over.

“Where’s the shooter?” I hear my own voice ask.

“Where’s the shooter?”

“Where’s the shooter?” I whisper-yell over to Parker, who’s now crying, holding her hand over the oozing wound in Lucky’s leg.

“It was me—us,” Jude states, pulling his phone away from his face.

He returns to the operator, telling her the address of the shop and the injuries sustained.

I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.

There’s no way they would shoot each other.

It doesn’t make sense.

Blood continues to pump from Six and I increase the pressure, leaning all my weight into him.

The sticky crimson liquid covers my hands.

There’s too much blood.

“The ambulance is on its way. Keep pressure on the wound and check his airways.”

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Parker cries, and Lucky strokes her hair, leaving blood streaks through it.

Don’t die. Don’t die.

“I thought he was going to kill Lucky,” Jude muffles, pacing the floor.

“Flesh wound, non-lethal to incapacitate.” He holds a hand over his mouth and looks down at the pale body of the man I love.

He came home.

“Shoot Lucky? What’s going on?” Parker demands.

“Lucky…Lucky. Oh God, stay with me, open your eyes.”

This can’t be happening.

It’s not fair.

He can’t come home only for him to die while I try to prevent his life force from leaking out.

Jude drops to his knees to make sure Lucky is still breathing.

“It’s the blood loss and shock kicking in. His pulse is steady,” he reassures, then the blessed sound of sirens blast from outside.

Paramedics appear exactly ten seconds later and two run into the room, one moving straight toward Six while the other diverts to Lucky.

The humming of conversation between Parker and the girl trying to help Lucky penetrates, but not the words.

All my attention is on watching the man trying to find Six’s pulse.

“Keep pressure on that wound,” he orders in a gentle tone, and it’s comforting in such an unstable time.

“I have a weak pulse. Giving oxygen and checking for an exit wound,” he barks out, coming to kneel by me and lifting the shoulder I’m trying to hold down.

“No exit wound,” he announces.

I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, but based on my measly knowledge provided by the show ER, I would have to say it is.

The bullet could have moved or be lodged somewhere more dangerous.

Please don’t die. Please don’t die.

He pulls a rubber tube looking object from the bag he brought in with him and feels down Six’s arm with the tips of two fingers until he finds what he’s looking for. Tying the tube around that area, he tightens it and the rush of blood pumping from the hole beneath my palm eases.

“Does he have any more wounds you know of?” the man asks me, and I shake my head while looking over to Jude.

“No, just the shot to the shoulder.”

Tilting Six’s head back and checking his airway again, he calls over to the woman, “We need to move now. What’s the ETA on—”

Before he can finish his sentence, another two paramedics arrive and he begins telling them medical jargon I don’t understand and can’t focus my mind on.

These two new paramedics take over Six’s care while the guy goes over to assist the woman helping Lucky.

“He sure is lucky,” the woman tells Parker after asking her for his name, and that gives me a small slice of comfort.

Maybe he’s going to be okay after all.

A gurney is bought over and a backboard is laid next to Six’s still form.

“Can you keep pressure while we move him?” they ask me and I nod.