Grace’s hands.
“Matthew, you’re going to be okay, I won't let you die,” Grace’s voice, filled with pain, heavy with tears, insisted and her face moved into his line of sight. She was pressing something against his chest, he could tell only because of the searing pain.
His body was going numb.
His brain threatening to check out.
“Run,” he ordered.
“What?”
“Run.”
“You’re so weak, I can't hear you. Hold on.” She moved so her ear was right above his lips. “What did you say?”
“Run.”
“I'm not leaving you. You were shot, I have to keep pressure on your wound.”
Matthew shook his head.
Didn't she know he would gladly give his life for hers?
All that mattered was that Emmanuel not get his hands on her again.
“He’ll be coming. You he wants. Run. Call the others.”
“Matthew.”
There was so much emotion in that one word, even as the world continued to fade around him he heard it, felt it.
“Grace, run.”
Her lips briefly touched his. “I love you, Matthew.”
Then she was gone.
He tried to lift his hand, put pressure on his wound, but he was too weak. As the blackness closed in around him, he realized Grace’s words would likely be the last he ever heard. As deaths went a declaration of love from the woman he was falling in love with wasn’t a bad way to go.
“Love you too,” he murmured to the empty car before the blackness dragged him under.
* * * * *
4:18 A.M.
Removing her hands from the bleeding wound on Matthew’s chest was the hardest thing Grace had ever had to do in her life.
Tears streamed down her face as she stumbled from the car, her knees so weak they would barely support her. Grace just managed not to land hard on her backside and staggered across the road to the sidewalk.
Call for help.
If someone didn't get to Matthew soon, he was going to die.
There was no way she could allow herself to believe that he was already dead.
Her hands shook as she found her cell phone in her purse and pulled it out. She had a pounding headache from the crash, and she was achy and sore all over, no doubt she would have a myriad of bruises come sunrise. Somehow, she managed not to drop the phone onto the concrete and pulled up the first name in the contacts.
“Gracie?” Elijah’s anxious voice answered in less than one ring.