Dropping the girl’s hand from her own, she rushed forward, pushing past the skinny man, knocking him backwards as she used all her weight to dislodge the bigger man, who was facing away from her.
He lost his footing and tripped over the white bag on the floor that she’d pulled the teenager out of.
The man fell face forward into the heavy wood steps and landed with a bone-cracking thud.
She was totally prepared to fight the guy if he stood up, but he didn’t. Instead, his dark eyes stared up at her, unseeing, as dark blood oozed slowly from a large gash in his forehead.
She felt her stomach wretch and turned to the side and lost the contents of her stomach.
Then she heard someone calling her name and looked up to see Josie standing at the top of the stairs, holding the remaining parts of the wood door open.
“Help,” Josie cried out, holding out her blood-soaked hands.
“Josie!” she cried. Concerned for her friend, she stepped over the man’s body—the man she had just killed—and rushed up the stairs.
When she reached the deck, she realized that it wasn’t her friend’s blood. Josie was kneeling over a body. A man dressed in all black, whose face was an ashen color. Whose eyes stared up at her, pleading for understanding. For help.
“Wyatt!” she cried out. She rushed to his side as Josie held her hands over a spot on his leg.
“He’s been shot,” Josie said as tears slipped down her cheeks. “He said that help was half an hour away like ten minutes ago.”
Just then several shouts caused them to look up. Two security guards rushed towards them.
“Call an ambulance. He’s been shot,” Josie said quickly.
“And the police,” Jade added as the teenager pushed the thin man up the stairs.
“I tied him up. The other one is dead,” the teenager said. “Oh gosh. That’s a lot of blood.”
“Stay with me,” Jade said, putting her face close to Wyatt’s.
“Not going anywhere,” he said. “Should have…” He coughed. “Bulletproof pants.”
Jade reached up and pulled open his dark hoodie to reveal a bulletproof vest that had several large dents in it. One particularly deep one sat directly over his heart.
Then she glanced down at his leg, where Josie was tying off a torniquet with a piece of rope one of the guards had handed her.
“You’re going to be okay,” Jade said to him. The words were more for herself than for him.
“This is a first,” he said. He lifted his hand to wipe a tear drop from her cheek.
“What? Me crying?”
“That and getting shot,” he said with a chuckle. He coughed again. “I might pass out too. I’ve never…” His eyes closed.
“Wyatt?” she cried out, slapping his cheek several times.
“Don’t. His heartbeat is strong. It’s his body’s way of shutting off the pain,” Josie said.
“How do you know?” she asked as she held onto Wyatt’s hand.
“Premed, remember? Before I decided I hated all other humans and wanted to kill them all by slowly poisoning their livers instead.” Josie smiled at her.
“Is he going to be okay?” Jade asked.
“I’ve stopped the bleeding. It all depends on where the bullet hit and how good the surgeon that patches him up is.” Josie leaned back slightly, her hands still firmly pressed on Wyatt’s thigh.
“Don’t you have major arteries in your legs?” Jade asked, pushing back her tears.