Page 79 of Forever Only Once

And then she moved forward as the other man held out his arm for her.

I tried to stop her, but I was too weak, the blood loss taking over. When he tugged on her hair, I shouted, and she screamed. Then, everything moved almost too fast to track.

He moved towards her, gun still trained on me, but then she moved, elbowing him in the gut, kicking him in the knee. Thomas shouted.

I got to my feet, ignoring the pain, forgetting about the blood loss, but it was too late.

The gun went off again. I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe. But I still kept moving, kept going.

Because Hazel was there, the gun in her hand, her whole body shaking, and Thomas was on the floor, looking up at her with wide eyes, blood blossoming on his chest.

Carefully, she set the gun on the floor, out of reach of anyone, and I went to her, my knees going weak. I fell at her feet, and she came to me, holding me close. I couldn’t say anything.

Because death surrounded us. So much blood, so much horror.

I saw death in her eyes. She didn’t say anything, though I didn’t know what there was to say.

Finally, when I heard other voices, and the sound of the authorities finally arriving, I just held her close and hoped to hell that we could get through this.

I didn’t know how, though. I wasn’t sure we could.

And as I looked at her face, I didn’t know if she believed we could either.