Never Have I Ever (52 page)

Sirens wailed in the distance as I grasped his hand in mine. I wanted to believe someone else heard the gunshots. I wanted to believe those sirens were meant for us.

***

What just happened? And why did it all happen so fucking fast?

Every detail of the hospital was so vivid and whipped by so rapidly that once I took it in I almost immediately forgot it as the paramedics explained the situation to the staff, all of whom scrambled to take over care. I couldn’t focus on anything save what was occurring in front of me at any given moment. The ambulance ride, though only thirty seconds in my past, vanished from my memory while I followed the paramedics down the hallway.

One of them rattled off, “Single GSW to the chest, breathing is unstable; probable
Pneumothorax
to the left lung. BP dropping; currently—”

“What does that mean,” I demanded of the paramedic. The reaction was involuntary.

A nurse alongside us ordered, “Somebody get her out of here!”

Just then a large, rough hand clenched tight around my bicep and yanked me back. “Come with me, ma’am.”

I never even looked to see that it was a cop I was about to slam my fist into. “Get the hell off me! Noah, wake up!”

A second hand caught my fist before it connected. It took two grown, fully-muscled men all of their strength to wrangle me from my adrenaline-fueled pursuit of the gurney flying down the hospital hallway. I crashed bodily against the wall, shooting pain all the way down my back with the force to my still-healing scars there. It knocked the wind from me and rendered me silent. Tears of pain and desperation and horror streamed freely down my face.

“Ma’am, I need you to calm down and come with us.”

I choked, “I’m not leaving him.”

“They’ll take care of him. You’ll only make it harder for them to do their jobs.”

He got shot. I just got him back and he got shot. He took a bullet for me. My clothes and shaking hands were stained with his blood because that was the sort of man Noah was.

The officers escorted me through the sterile building to an even more sterile room secluded on the third floor of the hospital. A small round table comprised of particleboard, more than likely from IKEA, rested against one of the white walls in the tiny, windowless room. They sat me in an off-white plastic and metal chair to wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

With no clock on the walls, I once again didn’t have any grasp on time. My mind reeled on loop through the events. Memories always came to me in third person. I pictured myself, Burly, Noah, and Ethan like the pieces on a chess board in the alley instead of the way I truly saw things through my eyes. The fucked-up things trauma did to a person, I swear.

A nurse came in to check on me at one point. She wouldn’t acknowledge my questions about Noah or Ethan. Her only priority seemed to be to make sure I wasn’t hurt. She left abruptly after brief examination, stating she would return shortly to clean what she could of the blood off my hands. Shortly, in hospital time, meant at least an hour. One of the officers who escorted me into the room stood inside the cracked door. I wasn’t sure if he was positioned so strategically to keep me in or to keep others out.
Both, maybe.

Time ticked on as I grew antsy. No news was good news, or perhaps not.

Once they left me to stew in my own juices for an amount of time they deemed appropriate—about long enough for me to dangle on the cusp of lunacy—the door pulled open and two men entered. They took their respective seats in identical white plastic chairs and laid their LAPD badges on the table between us.

One of them made the introductions, “I’m Detective Schrader; this is Detective Alan. Do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

I didn’t look up at either of them, only focused on the sticky, drying mess still clinging to my fingers. I barely even noticed Detective Schrader pull out a trusty notepad to take my statement.

“Did I kill him? Ethan—is he dead?”

Schrader clicked a pen open and began jotting down notes in sketchy shorthand. “You fired the gun?”

“He shot Noah. The bullet in Noah’s chest was meant for me. He wouldn’t have stopped; just kept coming again and again like always.” I swallowed hard and evened out my voice into something darker than I thought I could ever manage. “Is Ethan dead?”

The detectives shifted to look between each other, then back to me.

“Yes,” Alan replied evenly.

Good.

“And, Noah,” I cut myself off, unable to bear the thoughts I was about to say aloud. “Will he make it?”

“The surgeons are doing everything they can. The truth of the matter is, if he does live, you probably saved his life by acting the way you did.”

I gave them a subtle nod. The fact still stood: I killed a man. It wasn’t like I could deny it. What good would a lawyer do? My prints were probably the only other set on the gun apart from
Burly’s
; it was undeniable proof I fired the gun. Denying it would only make my life more complicated. Noah never touched the damned thing. The evidence stacked against me was clear and, provided Noah survived, I wouldn’t allow him an attempt at taking the fall on my behalf. Not after this. And if Noah didn’t survive… well, going to prison seemed so small in comparison to that prospect.

The brownish-red on my hands blurred into triple vision as tears stung my eyes. “Before you arrest me, I should tell you the scars left over from when Ethan abducted me aren’t completely healed yet. Please don’t rough me up. My body just can’t handle it.”

Schrader leaned forward, intrigued by my words as opposed to whipping out his handcuffs. “Abducted you? When was this?”

“Near the end of August.
I… I filed a formal report three days ago.” God, for a genius, I was such an idiot.

“Now would be a good time to fill in any details you may have missed with us.”

I leveled my gaze at Schrader. He was older than Howard, hovering somewhere in his fifties with a clean-shaven face and bright brown eyes sunken in to wrinkles no doubt acquired so early due to the stress of his occupation. His eyes matched his hair. They way the two men moved and spoke together made me think they’d been long-time partners, though Alan most certainly was at least five years his partner’s junior. He was blonde, thin-faced and wiry.

After a deep breath and, with stanch resolve which surprised even me, I said, “Okay.” Every major event leading up to the shooting, including the shooting, spilled from me with ease.

Much to my ever-present ability to be surprised by humanity, the detectives didn’t arrest me after I regaled them with two hours’ worth of statement. I left out the bits about the arson and precise details of the goings-on behind closed doors between Noah and me prior to that day. Nobody ever needed to know about it. If they dared ask then a vague answer would be all they received from me. Due to my cooperation, occupational standing, and low flight risk on account of my avid desire to stay in the general vicinity of the man I loved while the doctors worked their magic, they took my information and requested I call them if I had to leave the city for any reason while the investigation remained pending. Detective Schrader informed me there was no longer anything to fear from the man I called Burly. He had been brought to the hospital as well and, as soon as I divulged the full story, he was treated and detained. The only problem remaining was Selene, who the detectives had yet to track down.

Noah’s drying blood, finally washed from my hands soon after Schrader and Alan left, still soaked my jeans in Rorschach spots of various sizes on my thighs and knees. The hospital provided me with a clean T-shirt bearing its minimalistic shield and star logo screen-printed across the front in blue and orange. I sat sideways on an uncomfortable sofa in the ICU waiting room, my head resting on the back with my legs tucked to my chest. If Noah didn’t die in the operating room they would send him there. Because I was not a blood relative, the doctors wouldn’t give me any more information about his current condition. I stayed in the waiting room nevertheless. There was no place else I would rather be. So, I sat; staring at gray speckled walls and tacky carpeting, and watched the muted CNN station without actually reading any of the closed captioning as it scrolled up incessantly. I only did it to focus on light and color which was not of the red hue. I could not shake that color from my vision.

I fiddled with my phone for a little while to give my hands something to do. Eleven missed calls.
Three voicemail messages.
All of them from Noah.
I loaded the voicemail and heard the robotic female voice say, “First message.”

Selene’s was the first voice on the recording. “Let her go.”

“Don’t say a fucking word, Selene,” Noah snapped. “Piper, come back. Selene should never have come here.”

“You’re wasting your time.”

“Get out of this building in the next sixty seconds and I’ll consider not throwing you off the roof for what you’ve done you crazy bitch.”

“Not going to happen, lover.”

“Piper, call me.”

Click.

“End of message. Next message,” said the robot.

Noah sounded like he was trying to catch his breath. “It’s me. I’m out front and you didn’t drive here. I know you couldn’t catch a cab that fast. Where are you?”

Click.

“End of message.
Next message.”

“I’m not going to stop calling until you pick up. God dammit, Piper, stop running away from me. I love you.”

Click.

“End of messages. First skipped mess—” I ended the voicemail box.

Except for an occasional nurse or medical technician on their way to and from the ICU wing, nobody else occupied the waiting room for several hours. It left me alone to the whir of the air conditioner and white noise of the silence surrounding me. Over the course of those hours I listened to Noah’s last message a hundred times just so I could hear his voice.

The elevator doors opened just after a quarter to four in the morning. I cast a passing glance in that direction simply from the sound. I did a double take when Anya and Declan stepped out from behind the doors.

My voice sounded louder than it really was given the quiet. “Declan, Anya?” I cleared my throat; dry and a little hoarse from crying and self-imposed insomnia. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Hey, lady.”
Declan greeted me as they approached the sitting area. He bent down to give me a hug then sat on the arm of the sofa to face me. “Noah’s dad called me. His folks are on a cruise and won’t make it back for a couple days. He asked me to keep him posted.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, forcing a wisp of a smile.

Anya settled in a chair across from me. “Any word yet?”

I shook my head and dug at the dirt under my nails by way of distraction. “They won’t talk to me since I’m not immediate family. Why did his dad call you?”

“He loathes hospital staff with a passion. Plus, we play racquetball together every Tuesday. He should have called ahead to let them know
it’s
okay to talk to me. Don’t worry; you’ll get in to see him.”

“Remind me to thank the inventor of racquetball if I ever get my hands on a time machine,” I replied dryly.

“I’ll do that. Piper, what happened?”

So many questions had been posed to me over the course of the past few hours. I was already tired of reliving it over again. “As far as I can tell Ethan set up a trap to kill me. Noah got in the way. He pushed me out of the line of fire. Now he’s…” I didn’t want to think about his parents’ reaction to losing one son tonight much less both.

“Where’s Ethan? Tell me he’s under lock and key.”

“Six feet under lock and key.”
They exchanged a glance filled with a strange concoction of relief and horror. “He tried to take one too many things away from me.”

“
Fuckin
’ A.”

“Did his parents not tell you that part?”

“They were rather vague on that particular detail.”

“How long have you been here?” asked
Anya.

“I don’t know. Five hours, maybe more.”

“There’s got to be an update by now.”

Declan agreed, “I’ll go see what I can find out. Sit tight.”

Once he got his bearings as to which way was up on the ICU floor, Declan located and disappeared behind a set of heavy automatic double doors to find a nurse’s station.

Anya took the opportunity to ask, “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I admitted. I pulled my arms away from myself to show her the remaining blot-test stains on my pants. “There was so much blood. We were both covered in it. All I see is red when I close my eyes. What if he doesn’t make it? What am I supposed to do then?”

“There isn’t any good answer I can give you for that.”

“You know, I think the last time I was in a hospital it was back when my mom died. I keep thinking about her, how she betrayed me when she died like that. I’m not sure I’m ready to lose the only other person I’ve ever opened myself up to as much as her.”