Waters of Lethe, Book 2

39. Rush

Natali's limp body lay at the door on the first floor, the one she was to guard. I noticed where the bullets entered her torso before I even got to the bottom of the stairs. Jai continued to try to get me to stop, but I descended the stairs quickly, my bare feet slamming hard against the steps as I went.

The first thing I did as I reached Natali was close the door. It was ajar, so all I had to do when I reached her body was bump it shut. Before I shut it, I saw glimpses of the mass of people who still rushed by in a frenzy.

"Is she alright?" Jai asked. He stood back at an adjacent angle, holding his gun up so that he could take out anyone that came from the door or the stairs.

I bent down, my dress hiking up my legs as it had done all night long. This wasn't exactly the time to worry about a wardrobe malfunction, though. Natali's eyes were shut and she was barely breathing. Blood seeped through her dress in three different places—creating three fairly large round spots.

"Give me your shirt!" I yelled at Jai.

He didn't hesitate in pulling it off and tossing it to me, quickly going back to his look out position, gun raised and ready to go.

"I have three bullet entry sites," I told Jai, pressing his shirt to Nat's abdomen. It wasn't a thick shirt by any means, but it would help stop the bleeding. "I don't know if they exited... I don't want to move her. Natali?" I shook her shoulders gently and popped her on the cheek with the palm of my hand a few times.

Her eyes fluttered open, saw me. She tried to speak but ended up gasping in order to get air in her lungs.

The door leading out to the crowd of people burst open, the guy whose head I slammed the bar stool into appearing. I only glanced up once to see who it was, then went back to Natali, who had again closed her eyes. Jai got the shot off quickly, moving around me to pull his dead body inside and close the door again.

I focused all of my attention, all of my thoughts on the dying girl in front of me. I knew we healed quickly, as evidenced by the knife wound on Alex's stomach healing in just days. As I looked at Natali, I knew this case wouldn't turn out as good unless we got her to a hospital.

I heard footsteps descend the stairs rapidly, but Jai didn't shoot. With both hands pressing firmly on Natali's stomach, I turned around to find Alex. His eyes were as wide as saucers.

"We need... We need to..." he couldn't finish his sentence, though I figured he meant to tell us that we needed to go. Police would be swarming the place in a minute, assuming they weren't already in the building, and I didn't want to have to shoot an officer today. I didn't know if I'd even be able to do that.

Alex pushed me away, my hands coming off her stomach. He began to scoop her up in his arms while I rushed beside him to return the pressure to her wounds. If the shots went through, she could bleed out from behind. This was the reason I didn't want to move her, but I couldn't stop Alex.

Luckily, I didn't think the shots exited her body. Worst case scenario, she had a punctured lung or, even worse than worse case scenario, a shot to the liver. Natali could have internal bleeding that we could do nothing about.

"Alex, she needs help," I argued with him, our hips nearly conjoined due to the fact he was carrying her and I was applying pressure to her stomach.

"We have to get her to the chopper," he breathed as we ran up the stairs and into the hallway, Jai trailing behind us.

"Alex, she needs help!"

"Help is on the chopper!"

From behind us, Jai fired a few rounds into the two men who came around the corner that led back down to the main floor. We didn't stop, rushing forward through the double doors that opened to the large room with the big windows. We tailed it up the stairs and onto the roof, where the helicopter waited.

I didn't know that Scott had his own pair of flight medics until they hopped off the helicopter with an orange long spine board and ran to us, taking Natali from us and rushing her back to the copter.

I stood twenty feet from the helicopter, the blades creating hurricane force winds, stirring my hair around. I felt detached from everything, all of a sudden, like I was watching a horror scene from a medical show on television.

My hands felt terribly cold. I brought my palms up to my face to discover that they were slick with bright red blood. I swallowed hard, trying to keep the bile in my stomach from rising any higher in my throat.

Alex seemed to have the same problem as I did, but he snapped out of it quicker. He ran to the helicopter, noticed someone was missing, turned around and motioned to us. I still couldn't move.

I only moved when I felt Jai wrap an arm around my waist to keep me from falling over.

We reached the helicopter, and it took everything in me to hoist myself into the open back portion. I collapsed against the cold metal frame, leaning my back into it, trying to take deep breaths. Jai joined me, squeezing me in between him and the metal wall. He knew that I needed a small area; the scene in front of me was just too big.

I only noticed Deebo, Ming, and Piper sitting in front of us in the chairs when Piper escaped Deebo's hold and stumbled around the chairs, finding me on the floor. Her eyes were bloodshot. The tip of her nose was bright red. She'd been crying. I let her fall onto my lap, let her wrap her arms tightly around my neck. She pressed her face against my chest and tightly shut her eyes. My arms created a cage for her as I hugged her to me, not wanting her to see anything. I wanted this to be over for so many people, mostly Natali and Piper.

My eyes stung as Jai wrapped an arm around my shoulder, his hand firmly grasping it to pull me and Piper into his side.

I tried focusing on his steady breathing, the way my head was so comfortable against his shoulder, the way he smelled. It was only a little over a month ago when I last saw him, but it had truly felt like ages due to the fact I'd lost years and years of my memories and had only gained them back an hour ago.

Although I didn't want him to be faced with this situation, I was glad Jai was here. There was nothing he could do to help now as the medics began CPR on Natali, as Alex started screaming, as the helicopter lifted into the dark sky.