I grabbed him by the shoulders and moved him over, replacing my hands with his.
“Close the door, Lucas. They don’t know where Karen is.” I didn’t call her his mother, because she’d lost that title long before trying to gun down her son. No. Karen was nothing to him. Not anymore. “And grab my phone from my pocket. It keeps ringing, no doubt it's the Chief. Answer him, and tell him where we are, and that Miss James needs a medic on this side of the building.”
Lucas silently did what I ordered. First, he closed the door without sticking his head out into the hall. Then, he reached toward me with bloody hands extended. I motioned to my side, where my phone hung in the carrier on my belt. In the next moment Lucas had it in hand, and answered the phone to Chief Townsend hollering.
“Where the hell are you, Malone?”
“We’re in Miss James’ classroom,” Lucas spoke steadily, even though the tremor in his voice was a result of the whole body tremors I could see overtaking him. His teeth started to chatter as the adrenaline in his body started to fade away. “She’s bleeding and it’s really bad. Carter says to tell you we need a medic, on this side of the building. The door’s locked, and my mom is in the school somewhere.”
He kept spilling out information while Chief Townsend ordered people around in the background.
“I’m going to climb out the window,” Lucas told him without my prompting. “So they know where to go. Plus, I … I think I’m gonna throw-up.”
He dropped the phone next to me, the call still connected. I watched Lucas sprint to the window, just in time to throw up on the other side.
“He’s out there,” I snapped. “Are you in the school yet?”
“Yeah,” Chief Townsend lowered his voice. “Medic enroute. Casey’s with them. He’ll take care of the boy. How’s Avery?”
It fucking crushed me to look down at her pale face, but I did. I felt her pulse fading away with every passing second.
“She’s still got a pulse, but it’s slowing down. Karen shot her in the stomach.” Saying the words gutted me, bringing my own personal hell to life.
Noise at the window had me looking up to see Casey and two paramedics standing there, expectantly. They couldn’t all climb through the window, that would be too dangerous. So I did the only thing I could.
I let go of her stomach, lifted her with one hand under her neck and the other under her knees, and listened to her breath leave her body raggedly when I got her up off the ground.
“That’s it,” I whispered against her face while I carried her to the window. “Stay alive, Avery. Keep fighting babe.”
Casey was there, watching me with an unreadable expression, taking her from me at the window. I handed her over to him, waiting until he laid her on the gurney for the paramedics before I climbed back through the window.
My entire focus stayed with the woman on the gurney. While the paramedics worked on her, prepping her to travel, talking quietly between each other.
I felt a small, wet hand cling to mine, and glanced down to see Lucas watching them too.
“She’ll be okay.” He sounded more brave than I’d ever been in my entire life. “She has to be okay. She promised me a sleepover.”
I needed to hug him. To touch him. “Lucas.” My voice broke, and my attention split between him and Avery. Even though I knew the paramedics had her. “You shouldn’t have gone back in for her. You have to stay safe.”
I crouched down until we were nose to nose and then I hugged him for all I was worth.
“I … I had to,” he whispered through a sob that I felt all the way to my toes. “I had to go back. She needed me. I did what you’d do.”
God, this little shit had completely and irrevocably stolen my heart. While I heard the paramedics leave with Avery, I lifted Lucas into my arms and followed. Carrying him like he weighed nothing, I refused to let him go, even when we got to the line of police and first responders. Casey stood at my side, acting as a buffer when someone got too close.
“We’re going with her,” I told the chief. Then I followed the paramedics into the back of the ambulance, never once letting go of the child I held in my arms.
The entire ride to the hospital, I watched as they worked to save Avery’s life, and I prayed. Like I was sitting in mass with my entire family, I prayed to whoever was listening that the best thing that ever happened to me wouldn’t be taken away.
“She’s going to be fine,” Lucas whispered after they unloaded her and raced into the building. “She has to be.”
Her blood washed off in the bathroom sinks, and I helped Lucas to get everything off his skin, crying like a fucking baby the entire time. I couldn’t help it.
“You know you can’t give me back now, right?” Lucas’ voice broke through my melancholy while we sat in the waiting room a few minutes later. “You have to adopt me. It’s in the rules. If you wash someone else’s blood off my hands, you’ve got to keep me.”
“Fuckin’ morbid, Lucas.” I laughed, unable to help myself. “I’ve already sent in the paperwork, kid. You had to know I wouldn’t ever be handing you back. Not to Karen. Not to anyone else.” I coughed, and then wrapped my arms around him in a tight embrace. “They still have to terminate her parental rights, though.”
He leaned against my shoulder. “Bet they do it as soon as the courts open in the morning.” He sniffed, trying his best to keep me from hearing him cry.
“Hey,” I rubbed his hair, trying not to fall apart myself. “You’re not going anywhere. And it’s okay to cry. Fuck, kid ... I did it enough in that bathroom while we cleaned up. You don’t have to be strong. That’s what I’m here for.”
“Did they catch her?” Lucas sniffled again, but it didn’t sound like he’d tried to muffle it this time. “I hope they did.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But she won’t get away.”
The sliding glass doors that led outside slid open, and in walked my entire family. Followed directly by Avery’s family and Rett included.
Rett pushed through every single adult there and went straight up to Lucas, at my side. “You kept her safe, didn’t you?”
He wasn’t looking at me, though. He was staring at Lucas, and I fuckin’ lost it—again. Right there in front of every single person in mine or Avery’s life. Not a single other person said a goddamn thing while we watched their interaction.
“You saved Aunt Avery,” Rett solemnly said. “I can tell.”
Lucas finally nodded. I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t wipe the tears from my eyes either. I just let them go, sliding down to my still-bloody shirt.
“Good.” Rett patted him on the head, the same way I’d seen Avery do with both of them. “You’re gonna be a good cousin.”
And just like that, an entire room full of adults were left in a fuckin’ heap of emotions. Laid to waste by two kids who hadn’t even hit puberty yet.
When I finally looked away from my boy, it was to see my mom holding Avery’s mom in her arms. Both our fathers stood side by side, standing guard over them, and the brothers were all-in on an intense conversation with Avery’s sisters Bailey and Callie standing between them.