Griffen’s face came into focus above mine, his eyes stark with fear.
“Hope. Oh, my God, Hope. Look at me.”
“So much blood,” the stranger said.
“The ambulance is on the way, baby. Please say something.”
“I’m okay,” I gasped out, lying because I couldn’t stand seeing Griffen so scared. “Are you bleeding?”
Griffen’s face went blank. Softly he said, “No, baby. You are. You had your window open and a branch got you in the arm. I don’t know how deep it is, but I’m going to leave it until the paramedics get here.”
“Just my arm?” I asked, suddenly feeling the deep burn in my upper arm, the sticky heat of blood growing chill and clammy the further it flowed from the source.
Griffen had an expert poker face. He didn’t answer my question. “We’ll know more when the paramedics get here. Just stay still, okay?”
“Don’t I have to get out of the car? In case it explodes or something?”
The tiniest smile quirked the side of his mouth. “The fuel tank isn’t leaking, Buttercup, and I don’t want to move you unless I have to.”
The stranger kept babbling. “I can’t believe it, I thought for sure you’d both be dead.”
Griffen looked over his shoulder at that. “Shut up. I’m fine. She’s fine. Don’t freak her out.”
“Sorry, sorry, I’ve just never seen anything like this. Sorry.” The briefest pause. “Oh, my God, is that a Maserati? Did you just total your Maserati? Oh, man, what a waste.”
Griffen ignored him to brush my hair back off my face. “Just hang in there for me, okay? Try to stay awake and hang in there.”
Hang in there? How much was I bleeding? Griffen looked over his shoulder again, his features relaxing from their expressionless mask.
A second later, everything was noise and motion. Griffen was pulled away, and a man and a woman in dark uniforms were poking and prodding me, asking questions, making me move my fingers and my toes, probing the branch stuck in my arm until I gasped in pain.
Finally, they unbuckled my seatbelt and eased me out onto a stretcher. They moved fast, the blue sky flashing above me, the air cold on my cheeks, and I was being lifted and shoved into the back of the ambulance. They moved around me, attaching monitors, shoving oxygen in my nose, and talking over me in words I didn’t understand.
Griffen joined me in the back of the ambulance, taking my hand but staying silent to let the medics work. They decided to leave the branch where it was until we got to the hospital. That decision made, one of the paramedics went to the front and we started to move.
“ETA less than 11 minutes,” the paramedic beside me told us. “If you had to flip your car, you picked a good place to do it.”
“I didn’t flip the car,” he corrected the paramedic and pulled his phone from his pocket. After a few taps on the screen, he said, “West, Griffen.” A pause. “Not great. I’m in an ambulance with Hope headed to the E.R. We were coming back from Asheville on Boylston Highway and somebody shot out my left front tire.” Another pause. “I’m okay. The car flipped a few times and Hope has a branch stuck in her arm. We’ll know more once we get to the hospital.” He waited, listening, and then said, “You can’t miss it. When you’re done, you know where to find me. Yeah, I know.”
I tried to catch his eyes from my prone position, but he was avoiding me, staring across my body at the paramedic holding a bandage on my arm, her eyes on my vitals.
Giving up on catching Griffen’s eye, I looked at the paramedic. “Did someone check him over? Make sure he didn’t hit his head or something?”
She gave me a well-practiced smile of reassurance. “We gave him a quick look. We can check in again at the hospital, but I think you got the worst of it.”
Griffen turned to look at us, his smile of reassurance forced and stiff. “I’m fine, Hope. She’s right. You got the worst of it.”
Their reassurance wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
I stared at the ceiling of the ambulance and tried to think. Someone had shot out Griffen’s tire? We’d considered canceling the trip after the shot taken into the office the day before, but everyone had agreed it was unlikely the shooter knew our plans, and so far, the attacks had centered on Heartstone.
Guess everyone had been wrong. Somehow, the guy with the gun had known exactly where we’d be, and when. Someone must have talked, but who?
It occurred to me that it could have been anyone, and not necessarily out of malice. We had no idea who the shooter was, which meant the person who mentioned our plans for the day probably hadn’t attached any significance to the conversation. We’d been shot at twice and still had no idea who was behind it.