The wait was excruciating, every moment not knowing whether he was going to make it was slowly killing me. Carter's wound wasn't just a scrape, and I should have known that. The bullet pierced through his side, the amount of blood he lost was fatal, but as the doctor said he was holding for now.
The boy looked peaceful as he slept but his body was ghostly pale, his head wrapped in a bandage as well as the side of his abdomen. The longer I stared at his unconscious state the more my anger grew.
"I know what you're thinking, it's not worth it bug" My uncle announced from behind me, I hadn't known how long he was watching, but I knew he noticed my fists curled by my side. "I want to kill every single one of them for what they did, but we both know that's not smart".
I stood and paced the far side of the room hoping wasting my last energy would calm me down, but nothing was taming the fire building inside me. "I wasn't going to" I gritted my teeth.
"Don't lie to me Katie, you are even worse than your pops at lying" Matt laughed as he grew closer, letting his palm rest on my shoulder while he looked down from his height. "Look at you kid, you're in no state to walk a few miles let alone take on a group. And I know for damn sure when that boy wakes up he would kill me with his bare hands for letting you go".
"If he wakes up" I looked up to Matt with watery eyes.
There was a chance that Carter wouldn't wake up and I couldn't handle that; We had a doctor but not the resources we needed if things go worse.
Matt cupped my cheeks and forced me to look up to his brown eyes, my calm slowly surfacing when I saw home in them. "He will wake up Katie. You need to have faith, the moment you don't have that you start losing yourself".
"I can't lose anything else Matt, everything gets taken away from me now" My words grew sloppy as the tears ran down my cheeks "If I would have just made him pull over, I could have helped him. He wouldn't be like this" I pushed my face into his chest as his arms wrapped around me "I didn't even get to tell him that I love him".
I've known for weeks I loved him, the moment we were separated, and I watched him everyday not being able to talk to him. It felt like my heart was being shattered piece by piece, and then watching him bleed out. I knew I didn't want to be in a world where he wasn't.
"I love you too" A faint voice whispered from the far end of the room.
My heart stopped beating as the air was swept from my lungs. When I turned Carter was trying to sit up in the bed, but his eyes never strayed mine, he still looked deathly pale, but his caramel eyes were glimmering. "Come here" he held his arms out for me and I didn't think, I ran as fast as my damaged body could carry me and laid next to him letting my arms fall gently across his chest.
I hadn't even noticed Matt leaving the room as I warped myself in a bubble with Carter, his weak hands running through my hair as my worries diminished. "Thankyou" his hushed tone whispered against my head.
I looked up to him in confusion "You showed me it's okay to love in this fucked up world, I don't know where I would be without you Katie".
"Just promise to never leave me" I smiled back to him.
"I promise".
It didn't take much for us to both pass out, we were both mentally and physically drained and the only time I really felt comfort was in his arms.
But I couldn't get the thought of the attackers out of my mind. Who were they?
Edited