She lies draped over him, her ears ringing, her eyes disbelieving as the world explodes into chaos. Luke Kincaid throwing his arms around his wife, shielding her with his body, as a second and third shot whiz through the air.
Then silence.
Griff, his breathing ragged, cradles the back of Alabama’s head and lifts her body up with his own. He turns her over in his lap and then she’s staring up into his wild eyes.
“Nonononono ...” His voice comes fever-pitched and frantic as his eyes scan her body, her arm. “Fuck,” he swears. “Fuck! Christ! Oh Jesus Christ, sweetheart, what’d you do?”
Alabama’s vision clears and she sucks in a terrible gasp. Pain, needlelike and prickling, radiates in her left shoulder.
She swallows, wanting to reassure him, wanting that awful look off his face. “I’m okay, Griff. It’s just a scratch.”
“Goddamnit, it ain’t just a scratch, it’s ...” He breaks off, his face lined with frustration and despair. He whips his head up. “We need an ambulance! Now!”
Then his eyes are on hers again, his pupils so dilated all she can see is just a faint ring of gold.
“You gotta stay with me, Alabama, you hear me?” His entire body trembles as he cradles her in his arms.
She tries to nod, but her neck just falls back over the fulcrum of Griff’s arm. Her vision blurs, images going fuzzy as she tries to focus.
Then there’s a rustle of movement, and then there’s Sal Kincaid.
The woman’s skirting the ground, keeping herself low, ignoring her husband’s vicious curse. She lands beside them with a soft exhale. “Lay her down and keep her still,” she instructs Griff, her face grim with worry.
The world tilts as Alabama’s placed on the hard cement, Griff looking tortured at not being able to keep her in his arms. But he doesn’t leave her side. He grasps her hand and holds it tight.
Sal snaps her fingers. “Let me have your jacket, Seth.” A pair of cowboy boots move in Alabama’s periphery, and then Sal has a thin piece of plaid fabric in her hands. Folding it into a square, she clamps the pad over the bullet hole in her arm.
Alabama hisses a pain-filled gasp.
Sal, her green eyes fixed on Alabama, gives her a small smile. “You’re going to be okay, Alabama. I’m going to check for more wounds, just in case, alright?”
Alabama nods, nods, nods, but she can’t stop shaking. Can’t stop the pain that keeps slicing through her arm with laser-like precision. It doesn’t feel like a bullet. It feels like fire, like molten lava streaming down her arm. Oh Lord. It hurts something fierce.
Alabama dares a glance at her arm and instantly wishes she hadn’t. Bright red blood seeps through Sal’s fingers, through the thin cloth covering her shoulder. A sudden rush of nausea overtakes her and she whimpers.
“Look at me,” Griff commands hoarsely. “Not at that. You hear me? Eyes on me, Al.”
He squeezes her hand, only she can’t squeeze it back.
For a moment, her eyes lock with Griff’s. The pain and sorrow tightening his handsome face has her wanting to say everything to him, has her wanting to tell him what she’s always known, what she’s been putting off, but there’s no time.
She’s sinking. Her pulse is a rush in her ears, her mind emptying as her body goes hot and cold all over. And then she feels herself going limp, her eyes rolling back in her head, as she finally, mercifully, slips into the encroaching darkness.
Griff’s heart stops when Alabama’s hand slips from his grasp. All he can do is watch in horror as she trembles and then goes still and limp on the hard ground.
The shuttering of her eyes, the roll back to whites is enough to end him.
She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone ...
“No!” Griff shouts. His entire body jolts like he’s been electrified. Frantic, he tries to gather her in his arms like he can fucking reach into her chest and start her heart himself, but Sal stops him with a calm hand to his shoulder.
“She’s in shock,” Sal explains, giving Griff a sad look of sympathy at where his mind has gone. “But I can’t be sure an artery wasn’t hit. She needs medical treatment immediately.”
She raises her worried eyes to Luke, who hovers nearby on his cell phone. Kincaid stares at his wife as she works, his voice a numb monotone as he relays information into the phone.
Griff’s gut clenches. When he turns his attention back to Alabama, the air rushes out of him.
Her blood. It’s everywhere.