Page 195 of Make Us Yours
He then steps up to Gabe slowly, who still isn’t moving. Marcos whispers something to him, and instantly, Gabriel snaps back to life, blinking a few times then turning to look at me.
The paramedics run back to the elevators with the stretcher and Noah’s now unconscious body strapped to it. “I want to go with him! Please, I can’t leave him!” I cry, pushing against Ricky to get down, but he tightens his hold, stopping any attempt I throw at him.
“No, they need room to work. I understand this is scary, but we’ll follow them to the hospital, okay? He’s in good hands. If you want him to live, then let them do what they need to do.”
I don’t want to agree with him, but I know he’s right. “Okay…” I say in a small voice, praying this won’t be the last time I see my lover.
He has to live. Noah has to live. Because I’m not ready to say goodbye to my Casanova.
Ricky waits a few seconds, then calls the elevator back up as Marcos and Gabe reach us. Agent Callahan says something about coming to the hospital later when they’ve taken care of everything at the penthouse. But I’m not sure; I’m having a hard time focusing on anything but Noah.
We go to step into the elevator, but a thought occurs to me. “Wait! Blubber! We have to take Blubber,” I rush out. “I… I haven’t seen him since… I don’t know where he is. We can’t leave him here.”
“We’ll go find him,” Gabe tells me, cupping my cheek quickly then heading back into the penthouse with Marcos.
It doesn’t even take them two minutes, and they return with a confused little bald cat wearing a striped red and white sweater over his body. He’s currently sitting in his carrier with his heating pad and a blanket.
“He was hiding in our room under the covers,” Gabe says, lifting the carrier to let me see Blubber up close.
I reach out with a hand to pet him through the caging, but when I spot my blood-tainted skin, another wail leaves my lips, and I quickly cover my mouth, not caring that I’m getting it all over me. It was like my brain momentarily forgot what had just happened, but now seeing the evidence, everything is crashing back into me at once. Every image, every smell, every noise, every feeling. And it’s suffocating me.
From there, everything is foggy. I don’t remember the elevator ride down or getting into a car. I don’t remember driving to the hospital or entering it. I don’tremember getting placed on an examination bed while a nurse looks over the cuts on my neck and makes sure there aren’t any others.
She keeps asking if I’m bleeding somewhere else and where all the blood came from, but I don’t answer her. All I do is sit on the edge of the bed, looking down at my hands that are still covered in my lover’s blood, then down to my bare feet that are soaked in the devil’s. The man responsible for all of this.
I didn’t even remember that I was barefoot. I didn’t remember that all I’m wearing is one of Noah’s shirts that barely covers my ass. I guess that explains why Ricky put the throw blanket around me at the penthouse and carried me around everywhere we went, like I couldn’t walk on my own.
But the truth is, I don’t think I could walk if I tried. Everything feels numb, and I feel weak. Like if I tried to stand, I would collapse.
I hear the nurse tell someone that it’s normal I’m not responsive or talking, that I’m still in shock. Maybe she’s right, maybe I am in shock, but I also don’t want to talk. Because every time I try, every time I go to speak, all that comes out are screams as reality crashes back into me.
Talking makes it real. And if I stay quiet long enough, my mind goes to this vacant place where I can’t feel the pain ripping at me from the inside. Where I don’t remember the look on my Casanova’s face as he told me he loved me like it would be the last time.
She cleans my cut and places a bandage over it, then takes my hands and begins to wipe at them with some sort of disinfectant and a cloth before doing the same to my feet. I look down at my palms, at my nails, seeing all the missed spots, the pink tint still engraved in my skin.
“I’ll go try and find her some slippers and clothes to wear. You can bring her back to the waiting room for now,” the nurse says calmly as she stands and pulls the curtain open to leave. Leaving me alone on this bed, and suddenly that’s all I feel—alone. Because that monster took something away from me, half of something I don’t know how to live without.Half.
“Gabriel… Where’s… where’s Gabriel?” I whisper, needing to feel seen, needing to feel like I’m not alone in this chaos. Needing to know that my other half is still here, with me.
“I need Gabriel!” I shout, growing frantic by the second as I begin to look around the tiny enclosure, hands shaking and desperate to grasp onto some semblance of hope.
“I’m right here, baby!” He steps out from behind Ricky and wraps his arms around my back as I clutch onto his shirt like he’s my lifeline, and right now, heis. “I’m right here,” he whispers into my hair.
“Please don’t leave me, too… please,” I cry into his shirt, body racking with desperation.
“I’m not going anywhere, I promise. And neither is Noah. He’s going to pull through this, I know he will.” He kisses my head repeatedly, trying to soothe my pain.
I only wish I could believe his words…
Chapter forty-three
Gabriel
Unbreakable blenders.
I can’t explain how I feel at this moment. It’s like I’ve just woken up and taken everything in. My red-rimmed eyes sting with unshed tears as I hold my beautiful girl’s shaking body while she cries for our missing piece.
I don’t feel worthy of her at this moment. I don’t deserve to be the one holding her, the one she seeks out through her pain. Because I froze. When she needed me most, when my best friend was bleeding out on our kitchen floor and she needed my help, I froze.
