56. Sutton

56

SUTTON

I’d heard a bullet leave a gun twice now, but it still didn’t sound like I’d thought a gunshot would. It didn’t crack through the air like in the movies. It was more of a pop . Something that I wouldn’t have even associated with a bullet if it weren’t for the way the blood drained from Cope’s face as I raced around the corner of the barn.

Everything happened in snapshots that alternated between slow motion and super speed—as if we were in a comic book or superhero movie.

Only, we weren’t.

This was life. Mine and Cope’s. And as he crumpled to the ground, blood blossoming on his white tee, I knew his was in danger of fading. Of seeping into the stone floor, never to be found again.

Shouts sounded as Trace tackled Marcus to the ground. Marcus’s rage-filled ramblings didn’t reach the part of my brain that could register what they meant because every part of me was focused on Cope.

I hadn’t realized I was running until I was almost to him. I dropped to the ground, my knees connecting with the rock floor so hard my jaw clacked together and my spine jarred. But none of that truly computed.

All I saw was blood. Seeping out and blooming over the left side of Cope’s chest, far too close to where I guessed his heart would be.

“Pressure,” Trace ordered as he struggled to get Marcus into cuffs. “Pressure on the wound.”

No part of me hesitated. I leaned over Cope, placing my palms over his wound and pressing all my weight against him. His eyelids fluttered, and I knew it was likely because I was causing him pain.

The tears came then, falling fast and furiously down my cheeks and mixing with the blood that seeped through my fingertips. “I’m so sorry. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But I have to. I have to hurt you so you stay. You can’t leave, Cope. Not when we’re just beginning. Luca needs you. I need you.”

Sirens sounded in the distance, getting closer with each passing second. Anson dropped down next to me, his fingers going to Cope’s throat. “I’ve got a pulse. It’s weak, but it’s there.”

The tears came faster, but I didn’t make a sound. I just kept pressing on Cope’s chest as if I could keep the life force inside him with my strength. As if I could hold him together the way he had done for me so many times.

New voices called over the ringing in my ears. Sheriff’s department officers flooded the barn. Someone called for the EMTs.

Hands closed around my shoulders. “You can let go now. The medics are here.”

Some part of me recognized Trace’s voice, but I couldn’t look up to confirm it, couldn’t look away from Cope, too afraid he’d disappear on me. “I can’t,” I whispered. “I’m holding him here. I can’t let go.”

Trace’s fingers squeezed my shoulders this time. “You’ll still be holding him. You’re with him always. But the EMTs need to do their work.”

One was already at Cope’s other side, inserting a needle into his vein. The other found a spot at Cope’s head, putting some sort of mask in place. But I couldn’t move. It was as if my body had become set in stone. “I-I can’t. I’m not going to leave him. He never left me. Even when he should’ve.”

I felt Anson shift at my side, some foreign energy moved behind me, and then I was lifted into the air. The sound that left my lips was animalistic, nothing human in its notes. It was a cry for Cope and Cope alone.

“I have to save him!” I wailed the words, barely coherent against Trace’s chest as he held me tight.

“You did, Sutton. You saved him. But the EMTs need to help now so we can get him to the hospital.”

A shout sounded behind me, someone calling for a defibrillator. I twisted in Trace’s hold, needing to see Cope. I watched in horror as a paramedic cut Cope’s T-shirt down the middle. The other placed pads on his chest.

“Clear,” one barked.

Cope’s body jolted in the most unnatural way, and then the world went silent around us.

A symphony of sounds played around me: the hum of the overhead lights, the ticking of the clock on the wall, the punctuating beep of the heart monitor. I held tightly to that last sound, letting it reassure me with each little blip.

It was a promise. It told me over and over that the paramedics had gotten Cope’s heart beating again. The doctors had repaired the hole in Cope’s lung and got it to reinflate.

Now, we simply had to wait.

There was no way to know how those minutes without oxygen had affected Cope until he woke up. No way to tell if there would be other complications. If he would ever play hockey again.

My fingers threaded through Cope’s, and I wasn’t letting go. I couldn’t help but stare at the stains on my fingertips. The way the blood still lived in those little lines and whirls. I turned my free hand over, studying how Cope’s life force had settled into the lines on my palm. Those life and heart lines someone had once pointed out to me, grooves that were supposed to tell the story of your existence.

It was fitting that Cope had marked them. Because he’d marked me. I’d never be the same, thanks to him, and that was exactly how I wanted it.

A fresh wave of tears filled my eyes, falling into those lines, but it didn’t wash the now-pink stains away.

I dropped my head to the bed, my lips ghosting over the back of Cope’s hand. “We’re in it together, remember? And you always keep your promises.” The tears kept coming. “You gave us a family, a place to belong, a home. And none of it is whole without you.”

There was a flutter beneath my lips, fingers twitching. I jerked upright, my gaze flying to Cope’s face. Those beautiful, long lashes fluttered, his lids trying to open.

And then I saw them. Those hypnotizing dark-blue depths I wanted to come home to for the rest of my days.

Cope’s mouth opened in a barely audible rasp. “Warrior.”