Abandoning the wine, Harlow sprinted around the bar, throwing aside anyone or anything that got in her way.
It wasn’t until she collapsed onto her knees at Ryske’s side that she started to hear again. Grabbing up his hand and clutching it to her chest, she fixated on his eyes, ignoring how Bale ripped open Ryske’s shirt and Clyde on the phone to 9-1-1.
Although his lips were moving, she didn’t even attempt to decipher Ryske’s specific words. Without hearing them, she knew he’d be trying to give instructions not to call 9-1-1, just like he had on the night they’d met. But if 9-1-1 was going to save his life, she wasn’t going to express his wishes for him.
Stroking his hair from his face, she bowed to kiss him. “You’re going to be okay, Crash,” she said, taking his hand to her mouth. “You’re going to be okay, baby.”
Ryske was clinging to her so tight. His mouth opened again, but not to talk. The distress in his gaze was matched by the panic of his grip. He was wheezing, failing to get a breath. Trying to inhale and wincing, he tried again, but got nothing.
“He can’t breathe,” she said, searching Ryske’s gaze. “He can’t breathe! Bale!”
“His lung’s collapsed,” Bale said.
All of a sudden, a med bag was dropped at the doctor’s side and he got to work. Someone gripped her shoulders and hunkered down at her side. She guessed it was one of the guys, but she wouldn’t take her eyes from Ryske’s.
Blood stained the corner of his mouth. “You always have to be the center of attention, don’t you?” she said, her vision blurring. “If you wanted me to stop being mad at you, flowers would’ve worked.”
Pain welled in her chest. Blood soaked his torso, she tried not to look at it, not to see it, but the stain was growing every second. It colored his lips too. With a quick brush of her hand, she swiped it away when it trickled from his mouth.
“You’re gonna be okay, man,” Dover said behind her.
Harlow could hear sirens, and wished they’d hurry up and get louder. Clutching his hand to her mouth, she kept kissing him, praying that Bale being present gave them a fighting chance. But Ryske was losing color.
“Crash,” she whispered, moving his hand to curl his fingers around her throat. For the first time, he didn’t take over, didn’t grip her. “Tighter… Please, baby… Tighter.”
Tears dripped from her face onto his arm. The agony of fear ate her up. His weak fingers tensed for half a second. But when they almost immediately loosened, she yelped.
Sinking lower until her face was on his shoulder, Harlow guided his hand around to the back of her head to try twining his fingers into her locks. All she wanted was the illusion that everything was okay. If she could just get a response, some acknowledgement that he was still with her, she had hope.
“Tighter, Crash,” she cried. “Please!”
Nothing happened.
Filled with vehemence, and perhaps naïve determination, she sat up again, holding his hand in her cleavage. “You are going to make it! I am not going to let you do this to me, you bastard!”
“Harlow,” she heard Dover say her name just a second before Bale called out.
The EMTs were here.
The Floyd’s patrons were gone, yet someone tried to pull her away while Bale barked orders at the paramedics.
“No,” she screamed. “No!”
Tears made it impossible for her to decipher details. The pressure in her chest was restricting her breathing. Everything was frantic. She was losing her grip.
The only thing she needed. The thing that made sense to her. Was Ryske. Her Crash. No one was going to take her away from him. No one. They got him onto a gurney and then he was being wheeled out.
Hope. The professionals had him. They’d fix him. Make him better.
Harlow tried to follow, but she was tugged back.
“No, Nightingale, you can’t!” Noon called.
She hadn’t even known he was present, but when she whipped around, there he was with Dover at his side.
Yanking her arm away from Dover’s grip, she started to walk backwards. “No one will take me from him.”
“The cops will—”
“Fuck the cops,” she said and thrust an arm toward the door. “That’s my man out there!”
The pleading determination in her voice must have been enough to convince them of her certainty because neither pursued her when she turned to dash out to the street.
Bale was inside the back of the ambulance, about to close the doors, when he saw her.
“Please,” she mouthed and he didn’t make her say anything else.
Stepping aside, the doc helped her to climb in beside him. Moving up the side of the gurney, she sat on the bench by Ryske’s head, doing her best to stay out of the way.
Picking up Ryske’s hand again, Harlow kissed his knuckles and smiled at him. “You didn’t think it would be that easy to get rid of me,” she said, doing her best to focus on him and ignore the blood that seemed so much starker in this florescent environment.
His other hand moved. Though his eyes were barely more than slits, Ryske was with it enough to pull the mask down from his nose and mouth to talk. “The cops,” he mumbled.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, putting the mask back on him. “You think I give a damn about them? I’ll tell them I did this myself and after ten minutes alone with you they’ll understand exactly why.”
“Hospital’s three minutes out,” Bale said. “We’re doing good.”
That was the first piece of positive news and although she wouldn’t breathe out a sigh of relief just yet, Harlow did feel her smile becoming more genuine. Dipping down, she kissed Ryske’s forehead and cheek.
He moved their joined hands onto his chest, pushing it toward his tattoo. Harlow knew what he was asking for. Like it was a comfort he needed, she started to draw around the edges of his shoulder tattoo with her fingernails.
In spite of the angle being a little awkward, she tossed her hair out the way and laid her head down by his, not giving him any of her weight, but fostering their intimacy, getting close enough to let him feel this was normal.
They’d done it so many times. Almost every night this week. Lying together in his bed, saying nothing, just appreciating each other while she drew her nails around his tattoos in a silent display of affection.
His other hand moved again and she felt the elastic strap of the oxygen mask catch in her hair. “Stop moving, Ryske,” Bale said. “There’s no exit wound, and you’re still bleeding.” Ignoring the doctor, Ryske seemed determined to lift the mask. “Don’t pretend your ears aren’t working, ‘cause I know they are, I’m the doctor.”
Bale was distracted by something on a machine that she couldn’t see. But Harlow did note the look of concern that crossed his face just a moment before the EMT shifted.
“I love you.”
The croaked words were so faint that she almost missed them. At first, Harlow was too busy frowning at Bale’s worried expression to realize who had spoken or what had been said.
Once the words filtered through, she sat up just enough to twist and meet Ryske’s eyes. “Me?” she whispered. “You… you love me?”
Though it was a weak attempt, Ryske tried to smile. It seemed that he was struggling for breath again. Worry began to thump around her heart. Harlow wanted to do something, to take his pain away, to make him better. But she was at a loss.
Despite the pain in his eyes, he winked at her slowly. “I love you, Trinket… and I… I’m sorry.”
His face loosened and his eyes slid shut. She couldn’t… couldn’t…
Something began to beep, then there was a second beep in a different pitch. Manic in conveying the panic, the frantic noise was terrifying in its urgency.
“He’s in arrest,” someone declared and she was shoved aside.
Bale and the EMT were working, doing CPR, calling out to each other, busy and efficient in their practice. Harlow couldn’t think. She was numb, stunned, dazed, shaking, helpless.
“We’re losing him!”
A long, constant drone took dominance of the air. Certain in its finality… That sound, Ryske was… flat line.
Squashed in the corner, she didn’t have a lot of space. There was just enough for her to drop her forehead onto Ryske’s, to cradle his head, to cling to him like she could offer the life that was being stolen from him.
“No,” she wept without caring about her tears or her running nose. “Don’t… Please don’t leave me, Crash. I’m sorry… I’m sorry! Don’t leave me…”
The ambulance came to a lurching halt and the doors flew open. Ryske was taken from her in a flurry of activity. Harlow was quick to hurry out too, chasing after him as half a dozen people rushed in to begin working on him.
Someone caught her arm, yanking her to a halt. Fixated on his gurney disappearing down a corridor, all she could do was watch as her Crash vanished from her sight into a room.
“Ma’am,” someone said. “Ma’am… are you family?”
Tearing her attention away from the nothingness left in the corridor, Harlow found herself blinking at a sympathetic, but stern, nurse.
“Ma’am, are you family?”
Harlow didn’t know how to respond. Was she family? She didn’t know. She didn’t know which way was up right now. Didn’t know her own name. “I… I can’t breathe,” she gasped.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
Her nose was burning, her eyes blurred. She couldn’t think, couldn’t function. Working hard to draw in a breath, she let out all of her pain and anguish in a scream so loud it silenced the bustling ER.
Panting, Harlow recognized the sensation of a panic attack, but she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t keep the deluge of truth from sapping her sanity.
“I… I can’t lose him,” she said, grabbing for the nurse. Her head was beginning to spin. Air wouldn’t fill her lungs. Breathing was beyond her ability. “I… I can’t. He’s my everything… Everything and I… I didn’t tell him…”
Yelping, the ache of her fear clenched her heart. Weakness began to ascend through her.
“We need a doctor here,” the nurse said over her shoulder.
Harlow’s knees buckled. “No.” A strong masculine voice came from her side. Before she could collapse, she was swept off her feet. “She’s gonna be just fine.”
Harlow didn’t even know who’d picked her up, she cried and clung to whoever he was. It didn’t matter if he was friend or foe. If she lost Ryske, there wouldn’t be any point to her living anymore.
Taken outside into the night air, she was carried out of the ambulance bay and bundled into a car.
“How is she?”
Rolling her head on the shoulder of the person still holding her, she looked up to find herself in Maze’s arms.
Tucking her hair behind her ear, he peered into her. “He’s going to be fine,” Maze said. “You need to keep it together.”
“He died,” she whispered.
Maze’s smile vanished. “He…what?”
“In the ambulance… he died.”
Sitting there, wherever they were, in the car with Maze, Dover, and Noon, she cried and panicked, and begged to be let go. But they wouldn’t relent and kept her trapped in the vehicle. Persuading her that staying together was what Ryske would want, the crew calmed her and encouraged her to stay put.
No one said much else in the long, tense wait.
Time didn’t bring back feeling and it did nothing for her hope. One minute Harlow would convince herself it was a good thing that Bale was taking his time, that at least there was something for him to work on. The next she’d think the doctor was just too afraid to come and tell them that Ryske was gone for good.
She’d been staring at the back of the seat in front of her for God knew how long. It felt like days. None of them had moved or said anything for quite a while.
Suddenly, Noon sat straighter. “Bale.”
Shifting at the same time, they all adjusted to look out the windshield. That was the first time she really registered that they were tucked in the shadow, parked in an alley on the opposite side of the street from the ambulance bay.
Bale was striding up the ambulance bay and seemed to know where to find them. He crossed the street to head in their direction.
Dover got out of the front passenger seat first, going to intercept the doctor. Noon twisted to make eye contact with Maze.
Harlow tried to get out, but Maze grabbed onto her. “No,” he said. “Let Dover talk to him.”
Looking out the window, she watched Dover meet Bale. The men stood face to face, talking near the mouth of the alley. The waiting drove her crazy. What could be taking so long? She couldn’t see a damn inch of either of their faces. Dover had his back to them, blocking everything out.
“No,” she said, shoving away from Maze to clamber over the backseat. “I have to know.”
Neither of them could get to her fast enough to stop her from getting out. As soon as her bare feet hit asphalt, Harlow hurried toward the duo at the alley entrance.
“Where is he, Bale? I need to see him,” she said before she got there.
Her voice made Dover turn. The ashen look on the bartender’s face wiped the smile from her face. Searching him for any hope, she came up short. Turning to the doctor, desperate to find some in him, she wasn’t satisfied.
Bale had probably delivered bad news to dozens of families, maybe hundreds. But she didn’t think he’d have tears in his eyes every time he did it.
Fearing that his sorrow could only mean one thing, her heart shattered. “No,” she whispered, her lips cracking. “No… No, I don’t believe it.”
Walking past both men, she picked up her pace until after a few steps, she was running. The car horns that blared when she burst out across the street at a flat run meant nothing to her.
She couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t accept it. Not without seeing it with her own eyes.
“Harlow!” Bale called from somewhere behind her.
Focused on her goal, she didn’t slow. Running to the end of the ambulance bay, she rushed into the emergency room and headed in the direction she’d seen Ryske go. Most people got out of her way, and she dodged those who didn’t.
It wasn’t until she got to the double doors of the trauma room that she stopped. Registering the details of what was encapsulated before her, Harlow’s whole world crashed.
The machines were off. Blood and a mess of medical paraphernalia was scattered and smudged across the floor.
There, in the middle of it all, was Ryske.
Crash.
Pale. His eyes were closed. His body still. The sheet was pulled up to his throat. She couldn’t see much else, but there was no doubting it was him.
“Ma’am—”
“Leave her,” Bale said, and came up to her side. “Harlow…”
“He can’t be gone,” she whispered, touching the glass. “I didn’t get to tell him.”
“Harlow, you can see him if you want, but you should let me clean up in there first…”
“No,” she said, shoving through the doors to stride inside.
Bale caught the door to follow her, but he didn’t have to worry about pulling her back. Harlow stopped midway to the bed. There he was, her formidable Ryske… how could he be gone… how could the world still be turning when he was no longer breathing?
“The cops will be here in a minute,” Bale said, standing at her shoulder. “He wouldn’t want you facing them. I’ll tell them it was a drive by. He was caught in the crossfire. I was a passerby… Can you say the same thing? After the way you reacted in the ambulance and here…”
The guys would stay if she did. That would lead to their house coming down on their heads. Harlow might get a slap on the wrist, but she hadn’t engaged in anything illegal or immoral, other than her initial failure to call 9-1-1.
Ryske’s crew couldn’t say the same thing. They’d have to answer questions about who shot Ryske and why he was targeted. Bale would probably end up having to explain why he’d been practicing medicine in his bedroom.
Harlow didn’t want that, Ryske wouldn’t either.
But walking away from the man laid out before her felt wrong. “I can’t just… I can’t just leave him.”
“I’ll take care of him,” he said. “But you have to say goodbye… You have to do it fast.”
The point of her evening had been to bid farewell to those she’d met in the city. No one was supposed to die. Ryske wasn’t even on the list of people she’d planned to say goodbye to. She’d been angry with him. So angry. Now it all seemed so pointless. They’d wasted so much time.
Curling her lips into her mouth, she took a step forward and another until she was within touching distance. Extending a finger, she grazed her nail on the sheet over where his shoulder tattoo would be.
“Harlow, there’s no time to—”
“Take advantage,” she whispered, letting her hand rise to Ryske’s hair. “He’d be disappointed.”
“Yeah, he would,” Bale said. “He’d be more pissed if you let the cops get hold of you.”
“Guess you were right, Crash,” she murmured. “There is nothing left for me here.”
Bowing over him, she grazed her lips on his. Before she could succumb to her urge to throw herself on top of him and wail, Bale took her shoulders and eased her away. Pulling her backwards across the room, he drew her out of the swing doors.
Resisting as the door swung closed again, Harlow didn’t want to take her eyes away from the man who’d come to mean so much to her. “I don’t think I can leave him.”
Something touched her hand, making her look down. Bale was slipping something into her fingers. It was the braided leather band Ryske always wore around his wrist.
“It was all he had on him,” Bale said, stroking her hair. A tear fell onto her hand by the engraved metal cylinder. “You’re not leaving him. You’re going to take him with you.” Tipping her chin up, she wasn’t sure if the doctor’s eyes were still wet or not because her own tears were blurring her vision so much. “Everywhere you go, he’ll be in your heart.”
Shaking her head, she looked down at the bracelet in her hand. “I don’t know… I don’t know how…” Clutching it tight, she was surprised to feel ridges on the underside. Opening her hand again, she turned the cylinder to see there was another engraving on the other side. “Felix culpa.”
Bale put an arm around her. “It means fortunate fall.” Breathing out, a faint smile moved her lips. “He got it added… after you…”
Surprise made her look up quickly and he smiled.
Harlow had said some horrific things to Ryske. They’d been at loggerheads. She’d been about to leave and believed that he wanted her out of his life. All the while he’d harbored feelings for her and she hadn’t let herself trust them. They’d missed out on everything; lost the only chance they’d had to be together.
Licking her lips, she couldn’t imagine how she’d go on. “What do I do now?”
“The only thing he ever wanted was for you to be safe. Be safe, Harlow Sweeting, and his sacrifice won’t have been for nothing.”
Letting Bale lead her away from the trauma room doors, Harlow concentrated on looping the bracelet around her wrist. Once it was on, she held it against her chest. Ryske wouldn’t want her to cry, he wouldn’t want her to be hurt, but she’d disappoint him on both fronts.
Her hero’s life was over, and hers was changed forever. But he’d given her a gift and shown her what real love was. Harlow wouldn’t forget that and wouldn’t disappoint his memory.
Ryske had been hers and a part of her would always be his. No one and nothing could take that away, not even death.
TO BE CONTINUED…