Chapter 80 Bullet
My hands were covered in his blood.
"Tristan," I chanted, a broken, desperate mantra. "Stay with me. Keep your eyes open."
His amber eyes were cloudy, struggling to focus on my face. His breathing was a shallow, wet rattle that sent shockwaves of panic through my chest. The bullet had ripped through the space between his collarbone and his chest plate. It was a high-caliber round, designed to do maximum damage.
And he had taken it for me.
The chaos around us was a blur. I was vaguely aware of shouting, of heavy boots pounding on the wooden stage, of Vane’s voice barking orders that cut through the ringing in my ears.
"Paramedics are two minutes out!" an officer shouted.
"We don't have two minutes!" I screamed back, pressing my hands harder against the wound. Tristan groaned, a weak, terrible sound. "He's bleeding out!"
I hadn't seen Ida fall. I had only felt Tristan tackle me.
But now, as I looked up, fighting through the tears and the panic, I saw the aftermath.
Ida was no longer standing at the railing of the royal box.
"Clear the box! Secure the suspect!" the tactical commander bellowed.
A team of heavily armed officers rushed the stairs leading up to the balconies.
"Mina..."
Tristan’s voice was barely a whisper.
I snapped my attention back to him, leaning down until my face was inches from his.
"I'm here," I sobbed, my tears falling freely now, mixing with the blood on his shirt. "I'm right here. Don't talk. Save your strength."
He tried to lift his hand. It was trembling violently, the fine motor control gone. He managed to brush his fingertips against my cheek, leaving a smear of red across my skin.
"Did she..." He swallowed hard, his face contorting in pain. "Did she get you?"
"No," I cried, shaking my head frantically. "You pushed me. I'm safe. I'm completely safe."
A faint, ghost of a smile touched his pale lips. The tension in his jaw relaxed, as if that was the only piece of information he had been waiting for.
"Good," he breathed.
His hand dropped from my face, hitting the floorboards with a dull thud.
His eyes rolled back, showing only the whites, and his entire body went slack.
The wet rattle of his breathing stopped.
"Tristan?" I shook his uninjured shoulder. "Tristan!"
Nothing.
"No!" I shrieked, a sound ripped from the very bottom of my soul. It wasn't a word; it was an animalistic howl of denial. "You don't get to do this! You don't get to leave me! TRISTAN!"
I pressed my ear to his chest, right above his heart, ignoring the blood soaking into my silk blouse.
It was there, but it was weak.
"Where are the paramedics?!" I screamed at the officers swarming the stage.
"They're coming through the loading dock now, ma'am! Step back!"
Two EMTs rushed onto the stage, carrying heavy orange bags. They didn't gently ask me to move. One of them grabbed me under the arms and physically hauled me backward, away from Tristan’s body.
"Let me go!" I fought him, twisting and thrashing like a wild thing. "I have to hold the pressure! I have to keep him here!"
"We've got him, ma'am. Let us work!"
The EMT shoved me into Vane’s arms.
"Mina, stop," Vane ordered, his voice gruff with his own suppressed panic. "You're in their way. Let them save him."
I stopped fighting. I collapsed against Vane, my legs giving out completely.
"Entry wound right shoulder, exit wound through the trapezius," one paramedic shouted over the noise, packing the hole with thick gauze. "Arterial bleed. Pressure is dropping. We need to go, now!"
They lifted him onto a backboard with practiced, urgent efficiency. He looked so pale.
"I'm going with him," I said, my voice eerily calm now that the hysterical panic had burned itself out. I pulled away from Vane.
"Ma'am, you need to stay here. We need a statement—" an officer started to say.
Vane stepped in front of the officer, drawing himself up to his full, intimidating height.
"She is going with him," Vane said, his lawyer persona snapping into place like a steel trap. "If you try to stop her, I will own this precinct by tomorrow morning. Get out of her way."
The officer hesitated, then stepped aside.
I ran after the stretcher, my ruined Louboutins abandoned somewhere on the stage.
As we reached the stairs leading down to the loading dock, a commotion erupted from the opposite side of the auditorium.
"Keep moving!" one of the officers yelled, shoving a figure forward.
I stopped. I couldn't help it.
It was Ida.
She was alive.
The snipers hadn't killed her. They had shot the rifle out of her hands. Her right arm was a bloody mess, hanging limply at her side, the white silk of her robe soaked in crimson.
Two officers were half-dragging, half-carrying her down the stairs.
She looked up.
Through the chaos, through the flashing lights and shouting men, her eyes found mine.
"I told you," she screamed at me, her voice raw and ragged, filled with manic glee. "I told you soft things break! He broke for me, Minerva! He bled for me!"
"Get her out of here!" the tactical commander roared, shoving her forward roughly.
"He's mine!" Ida shrieked, laughing hysterically as they dragged her toward the front exit. "Even in death, he's mine!"
Her laughter echoed in the cavernous space long after they hauled her through the doors.
It was a sound that would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.
"Ms. Hayes! We're moving!"
The paramedic's shout snapped me back to reality. I turned and sprinted down the corridor, following the stretcher out onto the loading dock and into the back of the waiting ambulance.
I climbed in, pressing myself against the metal wall of the cabin as the EMTs worked frantically over Tristan.
The doors slammed shut.
"Pushing one milligram of epi," the medic said, slamming a syringe into Tristan’s IV line. "Come on, buddy. Stay with us."
I looked down at my hands. They were stained deep red, the blood already drying in the creases of my skin.
He broke for me.
Ida's words echoed in my ears over the sound of the siren.
I reached out, avoiding the medics' hands, and grasped Tristan’s cold, limp fingers.
"Don't you dare," I whispered fiercely, leaning over him. "Don't you dare let her win. You fight. Do you hear me, Tristan Johnston? You fight!"
The heart monitor, which had been beeping in a weak, erratic rhythm, suddenly flatlined.
A single, continuous, high-pitched tone filled the small space.
"He's crashing!" the medic yelled, grabbing the defibrillator paddles. "Charging to two hundred! Clear!"
Tristan’s body arched off the stretcher as the electricity coursed through him.
He fell back. Limp. Lifeless.
The monitor continued its deadly, unbroken scream.
"Charging to three hundred!" the medic shouted. "Clear!"
I squeezed my eyes shut, burying my face in his bloody hand, praying to a God I hadn't spoken to in years.
Please.
Please.
Please.