Jacked (73 page)

Marcus took us sideways through an intersection, slamming my side into the door.

“Erin? ERIN! Oh God, baby. Please no.” I squeezed my cell so hard the plastic creaked. The sharp pain in my chest took my breath away. My partner shook me. When I met his glance, one word trembled out. “Gunshot.” There was a final rustle and then nothing.

Marcus growled and used his mic. “Romeo Seven to control. Shots fired. I repeat. Shots fired inside the residence.” His hand landed on my shoulder, grabbing and shaking the strap of my Kevlar. “Stay with me, brother. Get your shit together and focus. Other units are just about there. You keep positive and strong now. You do that for your woman. You hear me?”

I couldn’t hear anything beyond the dead silence. We’d been disconnected. My calls went unanswered.

Several units surrounded my house, turning my nightmare into a sickening reality.

A uniform stopped me halfway up my driveway. I shoved him back. “Get out of my way!”

Marcus’s arm came across my chest, putting me into a restrained chokehold. “Calm down.” I struggled but he lifted and spun me like a ragdoll when I tried to escape. “Calm the fuck down! You can’t just barge in there, dude. Settle.” He plastered me against a squad car.

“Erin is in there! That’s my woman!”

“I know, man. I know.” Marcus grabbed my coat in both hands and shook, showing me his seriousness. “You need to pull your shit together, right now. You hear me? Pull, your, shit,
together
.”

I’d never been this terrified.

Marcus gave me a final shove and released me. “Now think. You see a familiar car out here? Recognize the suspect’s voice? Anything that can help.”

I glanced around the street, momentarily blinded by all of the red and blue flashes. Random cars dotted the street, but nothing looked familiar.

Another officer trotted over to me and introduced himself. “We have a perimeter set. This your residence?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, refocusing. “My girlfriend is in there. Don’t know if she’s wounded. I heard a single shot before we were disconnected. I don’t know who has her at gunpoint. Only way into the first floor is either through the rear door to the garage and in through the kitchen door or the front door. My woman is about five foot six, a hundred thirty pounds. Long blonde hair.”

My cell rang in my hand, showing a number that I’d become quite familiar with.
Texting
…
that’s what she’d meant
.

I tried not to lose my patience when I accepted the call. “Hello?”

“Adam?”

My grip tightened, hearing a female voice that wasn’t Erin’s. “Who is this?”

“Make all the cops go away.”

She was lucky I wasn’t busting my front door down at that very second. “Can’t do that. Not until you tell me your name.” I waved Marcus over, letting him know I had the suspect on the line.

“It’s me,” she said. “Make them leave or I’ll kill her.”

“Do you know who—?” Marcus mouthed.

I had no fucking clue. “Is Erin okay? Let me talk to her.”

“Make. Them. Go. Away,” the girl ordered.

I could hear the cornered desperation in her voice.

“Easy. All right? Just tell me if Erin is okay and I’ll tell them to back off. Work with me and we’ll settle this peacefully.”

“I didn’t want this. I didn’t. Things just… make them
leave
.”

“Tell me your name first. Can you do that?” I turned my radio down so I could hear her.

“It’s Kara, Adam.” She sniffed. “It’s Kara.”

Reality slammed me in the chest. “Kara? Kara Simmons?”

“Yeah.”

Regret the size of a mountain crashed atop of me. My moment of weakness, of selfish need and empty loneliness, led me to one meaningless encounter with this girl, and now she had Erin.

“Kara, listen to me. I’m coming in.”

“No,” she screamed. “You just want to come in so you can shoot me.”

Several officers surrounded me, monitoring my every word. I held them off. “Kara, that’s not what I want. I just want to talk. That’s all. Just let’s talk, okay? You want to talk to me? You’re in my house. Put down the gun, let me come in, and we’ll figure this out together.”

All I could hear was her breathing. A shadow crossed back and forth behind my front window. I saw the curtain move.

“Kara, is Erin okay? Is she hurt?”

“I just wanted us to be together,” she cried. “You wanted me. I know you did. That’s why. But I wasn’t good enough for you, was I? I was
never
good enough.”

I shook my head at Marcus and held up three fingers to ready our assault. Things were deteriorating. If Erin had been shot, her time was running out.

“Why, Adam?” Kara whined. “I never cheated on you. And you brought that whore to where I work?”

Another patrol unit rolled up; men hustled about.

“Flash bang and breach,” Marcus said low, coordinating our entrance.

I held the phone away. “They don’t go in without me.” I glanced at all the faces standing by making sure they all got the message, then started scribbling a physical description of the assailant. “Kara, no one wants this. I want you to put the gun down and come out. I promise no one will hurt you.”

“No,” she mumbled adamantly. “I’m going to hurt you like you hurt me. This is all your fucking fault!” Kara screamed. “All your fault, you fucking slut!” Several dull thuds accompanied her grunts. It sounded as though she was kicking something. Muffled groans and a pained moan assaulted my brain, which I could only presume were coming from Erin. Another crash resounded inside, which was clearly heard outside my house.

I drew my weapon. Fuck waiting another second.

We had our assault team organized within moments; I headed up my walkway. We had speed, surprise, and violence of action on our side—none of which our suspect would be expecting.

As soon as I heard my dining room window shatter and the flash bang discharge, we came in through the front door.

“Police! Lower your weapon,” the officers flanking me ordered.

Everything happened all at once—the ringing in my ears from the concussion of the flash bang grenade, the rising white smoke billowing out from my dining room, a blur of bodies and angered shouts. Years of training took over, moving me through the melee, though my singular focus of taking the suspect out of the equation warred with the underlying burn of getting to Erin.

The high-pitched scream broke through the air, followed by the trail of the tip of her weapon rising through the air.

“Lower your weapon!” I shouted, praying that she’d listen but instinctively knowing it was all too late. There’s only one outcome when you point a loaded gun at the police.

Long brown hair swirled in the air and then an officer was upon her, taking her down into the wall behind them. The distinct crack of gunfire pierced through all other sounds, sending a blaze of white-hot fire through my lower leg.

The register of pain was instant, and blistered around immediate anger and regret as I fell down to my knee. My gun hit the ground, still wrapped in my fingers.

Kara struggled while several officers rushed her, pinning her face first to the floor. That’s when I noticed a pair of bare feet and toes that appeared a shade of red too dark to be normal.

Erin.

Her body was hidden from my view, blocked by the wall dividing the living and dining rooms, and partially covered by an overturned end table and broken lamp. Blood was splattered and streaked on the white paint above her.

I holstered my weapon and held my breath through the blast of pain that throbbed up into my knee and through my thigh.

She wasn’t moving.

Kara was writhing, her teeth gnashing at the officers subduing her.

I threw my broken lamp aside, trying to get to my feet and move the table that covered her, but my leg refused to hold my weight.

Erin was so still.

I fought through the agony and crawled over to her side, only to have it become insurmountable. Erin’s face was pale and lax. Blood dripped out of her nose and down her cheek. It soaked into her shirt and pooled on the floor around her.

Oh, baby. Please, God. No.

“Aw, no. Baby… no.”

Erin.

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t breathe.

A sob choked off the last of my air.

My love.

My heart.

I cradled her limp body in my arms.

“Erin! Baby, please. Oh, God. Please. Please don’t leave me. No, baby. Wake up. Please, baby. Wake up.”

I’d done this.

I’d caused this.

This was all my fault.

“Sweetheart. Please—”

I’d give my life for hers in a heartbeat.

I moved the hair stuck to her cheek, lost in the agony.

She was so still; so pale.

I knew I’d never see her beautiful smile again.

The realization was too much.

Without her, I was dead inside.

Dead.

Right then and there my heart shattered into a million pieces.

EVERY TIME I
tried to surface, the
nothing
pulled me back under. It was black and heavy and settled deep within my bones. I tried to swim to the top a few times, to break the surrounding darkness enveloping me, but whenever my fingertips breached the edge, the
nothing
swallowed me back down.

My first thoughts were murky, as though I’d just woken up from my worst night of drinking, making even the simplest realizations difficult to wade through.

Something was stuck to my nose.

The air was cool.

I couldn’t feel my body.

The
nothing
pulled me back into the dark.

“Adam, can you wake up for me?”

Hmm?

My head felt as though it weighed eighty pounds. I wanted to sit up, but sleep was so much better.

A steady beep, beep, beep echoed about.

So sleepy
.

Paper crumbled. Women spoke.

Something loud scraped across the floor.

A male voice spoke to a female voice.

They were talking about me. I wanted them to shut up and let me sleep.

Something kept brushing over my scalp.

“Honey, can you hear me? Open your eyes.”

It was hard to focus.

The light hurt my eyes.

Bright
.

“Hi, Son.”

Mom?

My mother smiled at me. “Doctor said everything went well.”

“I just…” The ceiling was too bright.

Where am I? What?

She kept petting my head. “You just want what?”

I wanted to go back to the
nothing
. I didn’t hurt in the
nothing
. “…just wanna sleep.”

My father’s face invaded my view. His hair was whiter than I’d remembered. Things were different in this dream. “You’re old.”

His eyes crinkled. “You boys made me this way.”

I tried to move but the pain stopped me. “Ow. What? What happened?”

My mom rested her hand on my arm. “Try to keep still. Doctors had to put a pin in your leg, but they said that everything went well and you’ll be good as new in no time.”

Something was wrong with her smile.
Pins in my what?
A warm, throbbing burn began to pulse in my leg. I hated feeling this doped.

The light was still too bright.

I’d been shot.

I remembered now.

Memories brought pain.

Erin.

Realizations started slamming into each other, followed by the crushing weight of dread.

So much blood.

I needed to get up, but I had zero muscle control.

“Where’s Erin?”

My mother’s indulging smile all but vanished.

“Where is she?”

“Calm down, sweetheart. You need to relax.”

“Mom, don’t fuckin’… Where is she?”

My dad gave me a stern look. “Hey. There’s no need to curse at your mother.”

I knew better, I did, but I just didn’t give a shit. There was no way to control the avalanche of panic.

“Mom, please… Tell me where she is. Please, Mom.”

“I don’t know, Adam.” She glanced over at my dad—the two of them communicating in some secret silence.

I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to face it.

Her face gave her away.

No
.

NOOOOOO!

I remembered now. The gun. The shot. The blood.

I’d caused this.

The pain in my leg paled in comparison to the devastating burn crushing my chest.

It was all my fault.

Erin’s pulse had been so weak when the ambulance finally arrived—everyone in the room knew we’d failed her. I wanted them to quit tending to me. They needed to fix her before it was too late.

My mother’s lips were drawn together.

That only meant one thing.

They’d been too late.

I’d
been too late.

My vision swam in streaks of fractured light.

She stood over me. “Oh sweetheart. Shh. Don’t cry.”

I can’t live without her. I don’t want to.

I couldn’t stop myself. The sobs were too powerful. The pain in my heart was too much.

My Erin was gone.

Oh, sweetheart
…
no. I’m so sorry, baby.