Chapter 59 — You're My Perfect Lie

Everything seemed to slow down as I watched the spark alighting off the tiny muzzle hole, smoke arising after it, and like a wave of energy it hit me throwing me off my feet as I flew some inches behind, my body colliding into a hard yet warm one. Two protective arms wrapped around me lowering my body to the ground.

"Ember..." his deep alarmed voice reached my ears, and I glanced at his pained gaze growing anxious. Did the bullet hit him? I was sure it didn't hit me for I felt no piercing pain like a tiny metal tearing through the flesh but numb. All I felt was numb down in the torso.

My eyes traveled forward where the pretty redhead officer had Vienna pinned as she struggled. And then my gaze fell on my tummy, the white top painted into a new color. Red, and it was spreading. A burning sensation began to rise in the spot though I wasn't sure if it was from my imagination or from...

-the bullet.

Was I dying? Was it finally my end?

I looked back at the man holding me in his lap. He was barking at the navy-blue uniformed people around, but nothing I could make. All I noticed was his sharp features and how they clenched and unclenched, his stormy sea-green eyes where a tornado of emotions swirled.

"Hunter," I breathed, the burning hot pain was developing by every passing moment.

His blood-filled hand lovingly caressed my cheek wiping the teardrop I didn't even notice when fell. "Shh...love. You will be alright. I will not let anything happen to you. Do you hear me? I will not let anyone take you away from me."

Two men in white rushed beside me pressing cottons and bandages in my belly. "Mr. King, we'll have to take her to the hospital now," one of them informed.

Hunter's gaze came back on me and he pressed his forehead against mine, my eyelids beginning to droop, and a peaceful sleep lulled me towards it. "Don't you dare give up on me, Ember. I'm not done with you yet. Won't be till my last breath. Do you understand? I love you. I love you so fucking much!"

I wanted to utter the three magical words back, but my mouth wouldn't cooperate, and the paramedics lifting me on a stretcher taking me away didn't help either. I felt my muscles giving up gradually, and Hunter's protective hand slipping from mine as darkness began taking over transporting me to a placid slumber.

~~~

Hunter's POV

I sat in a hospital room. My wound was being treated while my mind dwelled in the OR where my beloved was battling death. My fingers clenched around the covers, the previous incident replaying in my mind over and over again, and the inferno of anger that sizzled through me craved to be tamed by the one and only.

"Mr. King, Sir, p-please loosen up a bit? Or it'll hurt more," the nurse spoke.

What she didn't know was it didn't hurt, not a bit, not like the ache that wrecked my heart. I had been such a fool to trust blindly exactly what that bastard planned. I had been loathing my mother for abandoning me. I had been loathing myself blaming me for my grandfather's death while those were all a deception to ravage my life, and now I was on the verge of losing my dernier ray of sunshine.

My fingers itched to wrap around that psycho vixen's filthy neck, and they would if the officers didn't interfere. I wanted to send her to direct hell for hurting Ember. Yet the rage that consumed me failed to lessen the hollow pit of consternation in my chest. I couldn't lose her. I wouldn't.

A stinging sensation went through my arm, and I yanked it away glaring at the nurse who began shaking in fear.

"S-Sorry, sir. I'm really sorry!"

Fuming I looked away when she timidly got back to work.

"Leave."

"B-But sir. It's not finished."

"Leave!" I barked. The barrage of my collected demeanor was cracking, and the emotions demanded to flow.

As the nurse scurried off I leaned my head in the palms of my hands, a colossal amount of obscure dread engulfing me whole. I couldn't afford losing her. It was my mess, not hers. She didn't deserve to be put through that agony.

Why did I let her off my sight? Why couldn't I be a tad bit faster?

My hands grappled a fistful of hair pulling at it. A strangled cry left my mouth and getting up I ran my fist right into the wall watching as bits of plaster fell on the ground, my knuckles throbbing.

"Hunter! Boy, control yourself," the booming voice of the man I called father snapped my eyes to the direction of the door. Rushing towards me he grabbed my hand ignoring my protests and examined it.

"Your knuckles are bleeding. Let me call a nurse."

"I'm fine!" I snapped.

Heaving a deep sigh he opened his mouth to talk but I hindered.

"You're content now, aren't you? That's what you wanted. To take her life."

He stared for a second then closed his eyes. "Look, son. I know I wanted to separate her from you so I could save you from the pain I went through."

Gritting my teeth I directed my heated gaze to another direction.

"But I was wrong about her...I was wrong about your mother." He looked down. "I heard everything. I can't believe I let anger take over my love and never search for her." Several shades of guilt and mulligrubs molded in his aged features as if mirroring me.

I watched him as he frowned.

"I see myself in you, son. You love the girl just as I loved your mother. But I won't let you deal with the same situation I did. I will do my best to get Ember the most proficient doctors there are and make sure those two spawns of Satan rot in the worst of prisons there is for the rest of their filthy lives." He gently squeezed my shoulder and turned around.

"Dad."

"Yes, son?"

Hardly had he turned back, and I embraced him in a hug. I knew he needed it just as much I did. He stood there frozen for a moment.

"I'm sorry, dad."

He folded his arms around me. "Forgive me too, son."

A sniffle parted us apart as we glimpsed at the door.

"Karen."

"My darlings, you just filled this old woman's heart with divine happiness," she croaked, holding both us men by her sides. Then her tender eyes traveled to me, "Ember is a strong girl. She'll make it through."

I gave a nod of my head.

"Boi, you should go talk to the Collins'. They're pretty shook," she suggested.

"I will."

The rest of the day went in a blur as the surgery was successful, the bullet was out, but the dagger of uncertainty still hovered over her head. The doctors couldn't deliver assurance till she regained her consciousness. Just watching her lying in that white bed pale and lifeless fluxed a flash flood of immense affliction through my chest.

Disregarding their dissents I sent everyone home and stayed beside her. Every second from every hour of wait while staring at her felt so damn long it was a torture. My body perceived to give up but the determination of being the first to be present when she woke up kept the sleep at bay.

I ran my finger over the wedding band on her finger kissing each of her knuckles. Our wedding mustn't have been the best there is, our relationship must have begun based on lies but those were damn perfect for they brought her to me, and once she woke up I would make damn sure not even a grain of sand hurt her ever again.

The atrocious night passed and came an anticipated morning, yet her eyelids kept shut. The remnants of patience were thinning out in me while the well of apprehension deepened and like that another day went beyond.

As promised dad fetched the best doctors from across the globe yet none of those scoundrels succeeded in gaining her eyes to open, and in the meantime, two more holes decorated the hospital wall for I was driving to insanity.

On the third day I sat there on the chair beside her bed, my eyelids craved to be glued, and my brain demanded to shut down when a set of footsteps from behind snapped my attention.

"Mr. King, sir, I suggest you take rest."

The last cylinder of my volcano erupted and getting up I slowly turned to face him. "Rest..." Careening forward I slammed the man against the wall by his neck. "Doctor, if she doesn't wake up soon, you will be the one resting—” I spoke menacingly prolonging each word, "-forever."

"S-S-Sir—”

Right then, like a whisper of heavenly bliss, a voice stopped me from almost committing a murder. It was so small one could easily deem it as a hallucination but it was definitely there. Letting go of the physician's throat I dashed towards the bed and flooding my heart with felicity stared back at me were those ocean-blue eyes I cherished so highly.

"I love you too, Hunter."