“It’s weak. Probably won’t make it to the hospital. If we can give him some blood, he might hold on.”
The engine started, and the propellers started to spin.
The medic turned to me. “Are you coming?”
I turned around and gave the orders to the men before I climbed into the helicopter and shut the door. Fender looked dead, looked like there was no hope, but there was still a chance…even though it was so small. “What can I do?”
The helicopter lifted from the ground and rose above the forest on its way back to the city.
One medic got an IV line going, while the other pulled out vials and medications.
“Do you know what his blood type is?” the medic asked.
“Yeah,” I answered. “A positive.” I only knew that because mine was the same.
The medic turned to the cabinet and searched the packets of blood. “We’re out.”
“Take mine.”
The medic turned to me. “You have the same?”
I shouted over the engine. “Yeah.”
“Alright. Take a seat. We have to do this fast.”
I sat down at the table and extended my arm, directly beside my fading brother. “Stay with me, alright?”
The medic started the process. “Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
When we landed at the hospital, the medical team rushed him into the operating room right away. No one said anything to me. No one gave me false assurances. He was just taken away.
All I could do was sit in the waiting room and stare at the floor.
For injuries of this magnitude, we couldn’t use our own medical team. We needed surgeons and equipment to get this done. It wasn’t a simple bullet in the arm that could be pulled out with tweezers and an old-fashioned suture kit.
He would probably die on the table.
I didn’t know what to do. The girls didn’t have a cell phone, so I had no way to reach them. I could call Miranda and have her go by the place and bring them here, but by the time they arrived, he might already be dead. Raven wouldn’t care less about my brother’s demise, but she would care about my sorrow. And Melanie would care, obviously.
I couldn’t bring myself to talk on the phone, so I texted Miranda and told her what to do.
Then I waited.
I hadn’t moved from my spot in over an hour, staring at the floor and remembering the final fight with Napoleon. That man had always been a liar. He’d purposely made us underestimate him. There was no mistake; he was a force to be reckoned with. He was savage, brutal, straight-up evil.
I wished Fender had believed me. I didn’t know Napoleon was all those things, but I always knew I didn’t like him.
It was a hunch. It was instinct.
I heard a distressed voice coming from my right. “Please help me. I’m looking for my fiancé. I guess he’s in surgery?”
I rose to my feet and walked over to the check-in counter. “He’s here. Just waiting for news.” I’d washed the blood off my hands, but there were still drops on my shirt. My clothing was black so it was hard to see, but it was there, like drops of rain.
Melanie turned to me, her eyes already overflowing with tears, terror in her gaze, looking like she’d lost everything that mattered to her. “Is he going to be okay? What happened? Did you kill the motherfucker who did this to him?” Raven stood behind her, her hand on her sister’s arm but her eyes on mine. She wanted to move into my chest and embrace me, but I was the one clearly uninjured, and her sister needed her right now.
I wouldn’t lie. It would just hurt more. “Melanie, I’m sorry… He’s probably not gonna make it.”
The pain on her face was indescribable. Her whole world crashed down around her, the horror and heartbreak conveyed in the expressions she made. Her hand moved over her mouth, and she stifled a sob she couldn’t control.
I’d already shed all my tears at the camp. I didn’t have anything left.
Raven turned her sister into her chest and let her cry against her, holding her the way a mother held her daughter. She cupped the back of her head and rubbed her back, letting her fall apart.
I wanted to be with my woman, to feel her comfort me because I’d already lost a part of my soul, but I knew she was pulled into two different directions and she had to choose.
She made the same choice I would’ve made.
I turned away and gave them their space. I went back to the chair, sat down, and stared at the floor once again.
They stood together for fifteen minutes, Melanie cycling through sobs and hysteria before she turned quiet. But then the whole thing would start all over again. She eventually excused herself and went to the restroom to clean up.
Raven came to me.
I was on my feet so fast and moving into her like we were two magnets that were unable to oppose the forces that attracted our souls. My arms held her body, and I brought our faces in close together, reunited with the woman I’d worked so hard to come back to. I was covered in bruises and scars, but nothing that would change my life.
“Are you okay?” Now it was her turn to shed tears, to release happy tears that I had returned to her. It easily could’ve been the other way around, with me on the operating room table dead, but Fender had made sure that didn’t happen.
“Yes.”
She examined the cut on my head where I’d been hit with the cane and saw the bruising emerge from underneath my shirt. She looked me over, visibly in pain at my discomfort but still happy that I was there and whole. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t come back to me.”
“But I did come back.”
Raven’s eyes watered as her hands moved to rest on my neck.
“Napoleon was gonna kill me. Fender saved me. That’s why he’s in there…and I’m not.”
Her eyes watered. “I’m so sorry…”
She understood exactly how that would make me feel. Instead of wanting my happiness at being safe, she focused on the guilt and the pain that I must be feeling, knowing the cost of my life was his. It was another reason I loved her so deeply, that she understood my feelings so easily without my having to explain them. “Yeah…”
“There’s still hope, Magnus.”
I shook my head. “He’s lost too much blood. There’s too much damage. I’m surprised he made it until the chopper got there.”
“Then don’t be surprised if he makes it out of surgery, too. That man has a lot to live for, and I know he will fight his hardest to live for you.” She cupped my cheeks and watched my eyes water like hers without any judgment. “Don’t give up on him.”
“It’s just easier to assume the worst because if I get my hopes up…” I shook my head. “I know he’s done bad things, but he’s a good man. He’s always taken care of me, ever since we were kids. He told me he would sacrifice his life for mine all over again. Doesn’t matter how much we fight, how much we disagree, his love has always been unconditional. I have no idea how I’m going to go on without him.” That was something she could understand because she’d refused to leave Melanie in that camp. Raven never took the easy way out because she was always committed to being at her sister’s side. Raven and I were two sides of the same coin, two people of the same soul.