Southern Heart, Madison, Natasha [the little red hen ebook TXT] 📗

sure the wound is clean before I grab the hook and some thread.

My stomach burns as I think of him alone out there with no one knowing he was missing. My parents text me twice a day, and if I don’t answer them, they have a phone chain they put into effect. How does he not have this? Why doesn’t he have this? Who is this man who has slowly crept into my family?

"How is his pressure?" I ask Ethan, who had this training when he was in the black ops team.

"Normal," he says. "How's the wound?"

"Normal." I smirk at him and bend my head to start stitching him up.

* * *

I hang my head down and let the water cascade around me. The tightness in my neck doesn’t go away. I’ve been up for thirty-eight hours straight, give or take. Watching the water swirl down the drain, I’m fixated on that image and trying to forget everything I just saw.

Closing my eyes, all I can see is blood. So much fucking blood I didn’t think he would make it, and all I could do was ignore the way my heart was beating. I had to ignore the fear that was creeping in and focus on keeping him alive. Everyone helped in their own way, but no one could have stitched him up like me. So I refused to even take a break. I refused to drink. I refused everything until the last stitch was sewn, and were there ever fucking stitches.

Seventy stitches just on his legs and twenty for the bullet wound. I close my hands, looking down at them, and then the cramping starts.

I turn off the water and step out of the shower, grabbing the white towel. Wrapping it around myself, I slip on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. I tie my hair on top of my head, ignoring the tension in the back of my neck that is not going away.

Opening the bathroom door, I’m shocked when I see my mother sitting on the bed. "Mom," I say her name, and she turns to look at me. "What are you doing here?" I ask. I’m suddenly scared he coded, and no one came to get me. She sees my eyes moving from her to the door and back to her.

"Dad called me." She smiles at me. "I brought over something for you to eat." She points at the tray of food she placed on the bedside table. I let out a huge sigh of relief.

"Where is everyone?" I look toward the hallway, knowing that Ethan is probably sitting by his bed.

"Only Ethan is left," she says, and I go and sit next to her. "You need to sleep."

"I need to eat and sleep but," I say, looking toward the door, "he needs to be watched for the next twenty-four hours."

"And Ethan is with him," she reinterates. "So eat and then get at least four hours of sleep."

Grabbing the tray, I bring it on the bed with us. "Is this Grandma’s special soup?"

"Obviously," she says. "We had to talk her and Grandpa down, or they would have charged in here." I laugh, grabbing the spoon, taking a sip of the butternut squash soup that is my favorite.

"It was scary, Mom," I tell her without looking up as I blink away my tears.

She puts her arms around me as I sniffle. "Dad said you were a rock star."

I take a bite of the chicken salad sandwich with fresh cranberries. "He has to say that. He’s my dad." I look over at her. "He also paid a shit ton for my education, so he has to say that. I’m exhausted," I say to her, and I hear footsteps from the hallway and look up to see Ethan. "Is he okay?" I’m already getting out of bed to go to him.

"He’s fine," he says, looking at me. "I was checking on you."

"I’m fine," I say. "I’m not the one fighting to live."

"You kicked ass, Care Bear," he says, smirking.

"It’s not like I had a choice in the matter." I look at them both, and my mother gets off the bed. “You threw me in the deep end and said swim.”

"Okay, it’s time for me to go and for you to get some rest," my mother says, picking up the tray and turning to me. "Call me if you want to talk."

"Um,” I say something and stop. "Is there any chance that the guy who did that…?" I point at the room where Mayson lies.

"Uncle Casey got the guys to come in and wire this place like Fort Knox," Ethan says. "Besides, I’m in the next room."

I slip into bed as he closes the bedroom door, and I sink into the mattress. Pulling up the thick white cover to my neck, I let sleep take over me.

The darkness sucked me in, and I couldn’t move. I looked around, and I was in the forest behind my grandparents' house. Looking around as if I was lost, I saw something from the side, and fear crept into me. I felt myself running through the forest, the sounds of branches snapping under my feet.

The echoes of my breathing filled the silence of the darkness. Low tree leaves slapped against legs as I heard someone chant my name. "Chelsea." I looked over my shoulder, the shadow coming closer and closer like a wolf in the night.

I tripped over a log, falling on my face, and the pain hit my stomach right away. I got up and looked down at myself and saw the blood seeping out of my stomach. I put my hand to the side as I felt the burning right through me, then holding it up and seeing the blood all over my hand. "Chelsea." I heard my name yelled frantically, and I turned to see Mayson crawling through the mud. "Run!" he shouted at me, and I turned to run only to be staring into the barrel