Fall To Pieces: Broken #2 (The Broken Series) (22 page)

I heard Cam scream before Rachel pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Kyle

Yellow plastic tape surrounded the building.

“Holy shit,” Derek cursed, rushing for the house.

I couldn’t speak; I was too busy pushing past paramedics and cops.

“Sir, you can’t go in there,” a police officer told me, holding his hand out in front of my chest. “This is an official crime scene, please step back.”

“Fuck you, this is my house. My girlfriend and baby are inside that house.”

I slammed against him, but two more officers came over to hold me back.

I listened as the officer spoke into his walkie-talkie. “The owner of the house claims there i
s an infant inside the building.” He paused as he listened to the person on the other side, then huffed loudly. “Move fast, leave nothing unturned.”

“What the hell is going on?” Derek demanded. “Will someone fucking tell us something?”

“Young man, step back and let us do our job,” the officer said, focusing on Derek.

I shrugged free.

“Step back?” I shouted, pushing the cop in the chest. “That’s our house. Goddammit, my family is inside that house and you’re not telling us shit. How the fuck, do you expect us to calm down and stand back?”

A hand grabbed my arm and tugged.

“Mr. Carter, can you tell us who may have a grudge on you and your family?” a female reporter asked, shoving a microphone in my face.

I pushed the microphone roughly away. “What are you talking about?” I demanded, pushing forward.

“Sir, if you don’t step back and let us do our job, we will restrain you,” another officer said, as he dragged me back.

“Fuck you,” I snarled shoving him out of my way.

My arms were jerked behind my back, and I was cuffed, and forced to my knees.

“Calm down
, sir,” the officer said sympathetically.

I was just about to tell him to kiss my ass, when a thunderous noise erupted from inside the house.

My chest heaved as my brain registered the sound.

It could only come from one thing; a gun.

*****

Lee

The gun went off, and I collapsed...But I was still breathing, still conscious.

My ears were ringing from the sharp bellowing sound, and for a brief moment, I thought that surely someone would come.

Two loud gunshots on a busy street; someone was bound to have heard.

I thought I could hear people outside, but I wasn’t sure if it was wishful thinking...

The kitchen tiles were cool against my back.

Everything hurt, even my fingernails, but that was good.

It mea
nt I could feel my body.

I was still
in
my body.

I tried to move, but there was weight, a suffocating heaviness on top of me, that hadn’t been there before.

Struggling to breathe, I opened my eyes and screamed.

Cam.

Cam’s bloodshot eyes were open, and staring lifelessly into mine.

The weight of her body on top of my chest was crushing my airways.

Fear escalated through me, as I managed to drag myself out from underneath her.

Laying Cam on her back, I hovered over her anxiously. Her body was still, she was too still.

“What did you do?” I cried, while running my bloody hands over her chest, her arms and her stomach. “What’s wrong with her? What did you do?” I screamed, as I checked her pulse.

I couldn’t feel anything; my hands were shaking so badly.

I couldn’t see anything wrong with her.

She looked fine. She must have passed out, that was it. The shock must have caused her to faint.

Cam is fine. She is okay. She isn’t bleeding.

My eyes roamed over he
r, and that’s when I noticed it; the steady flow of blood coming from the back of her head, staining her golden hair, pooling on the kitchen floor. 

“NO.”

I covered her mouth with mine and tried to breathe air into her lifeless lungs, but…I could barely breathe, blood gurgled in my mouth.

“She shouldn’t have bothered to try and protect you.” Rachel laughed, and it was an, evil, toxic, bone-chilling sound. “You’re not worth saving. You’re not worth anything.”

I didn’t look up at Rachel.

I didn’t need to.

I already knew what was about to happen.

I curled my body over Cam’s and waited for the sound of a gunshot.

And when it came, everything went black.

*****

Kyle

There was silence, and then another shot went off. I stared wide eyed at Derek.

“Jesus Christ, somebody do something.” I roared as I struggled against my restraints and the officers’ who were holding me back.

Somewhere from behind me, I heard a voice shout, “They’re going in.”

I watched in slow motion, as the cops kicked in my front door, and at least a dozen armed officers’ rushed inside.

My phone sounded in my pants and Derek came and knelt beside me.

Sliding the phone out of my pocket, he put it to his ear. “Linda, its Derek Porter.”

He paused for a moment, and then sighed. “Oh, thank god.”

He turned to look at me. “Linda said our house is all over the news. She’s at the hotel, she has Hope. Lee dropped her off a couple of hours ago.”

I sagged in relief.

Thank god.

I had no fucking clue what was happening inside my house, but the fact that my daughter was safe with Linda, gave me hope that Lee wasn’t inside that house.

He turned his attention back to the front door, and his face paled.

Dropping the phone, Derek clasped his chest as he staggered backwards, landing on the ground next to me.

A silence fell over the crowd, and camera lights flashed wildly, as the front door opened.

Two officers marched out; their hands clamped around the arms of a woman in handcuffs, as several paramedics’ rushed past them
to get into the house.

“Oh, god.”

I collapsed to the ground at the sight of Rachel.

Any hope I had
of Lee not being inside in the house, diminished when Rachel caught my eye and smiled.

“I did this for us,” she mouthed. “I love you, Kyle.”

My worst fears were confirmed.

I knew, I
knew
this was bad.

I knelt, frozen on the ground, eyes locked on Rachel’s, as the officers’ bundled her into a police car and sped off.

Two male paramedics stepped out of the house next.

My eyes trailed down to the person lying on the trolley they were pushing, and my heart stopped, my entire body trembled.

My body buckled, but I forced myself to move.

“Lee,” I roared, trying to stand up, pushing past the fear of seeing her underneath that white sheet.

I needed to know it wasn’t her.

I had to check.

I fucking had to…

The officer clamped his hands on shoulders, forcing me down.

“Get the hell off me,” I shouted, struggling to break free and get to the ambulance.

Another gurney was pushed out the door and rushed quickly to the ambulance.

Five paramedics surrounded that one and I couldn’t see who it was.

“Please,” I begged. “My girlfriend…I think that’s my girlfriend.”

The officer seemed to waver for a moment, before nodding.

Helping me to my feet, he unlocked my handcuffs and walked with me as I staggered towards the ambulance. The officer explained to the paramedics who I was.

And then my entire world came crashing down on me, as I was faced with the hardest decision of my life

“They
are both female’s, in their early twenties, which one, son?” the officer asked me, and I didn’t know.

Two ambulances, with two females… I didn’t know which one she was inside of, or who the other girl was.

I didn’t know, and apparently, neither did the paramedics.

“We have to go
, sir,” the female paramedic said as she began to close the doors. “Are you coming in this one?”

I looked at one ambulance, and then the
one next to it, willing my gut instinct to kick in.

Thankfully, Derek came to my side, taking the choice away from me.

“Kyle, I’ll go in this one, you go in the other,” he said, striding toward the paramedic.

I didn’t stop to think about it, I ran to the back of the other ambulance and climbed inside.

The engine of the ambulance roared to life, taking off, siring’s blaring.

“You need to sit down, and buckle up,” someone informed me, but I wasn’t listening.

My heart had stopped dead at the sight before me, and I couldn’t think past anything but the sight of the sheet covered body, lying on the stretcher in front of me.

Ignoring the paramedic’s protests
, I stepped closer to the stretcher.

With trembling hands and a grief-stricken heart, I pulled the sheet back.

“No,” I whispered, as my eyes took in what my brain refused to register.

My body quavered and my legs gave out.

I crumbled to the floor as the cruel and torturous agony of grief washed over me.

*****

Kyle

As Derek and I sat silently, side by side, in the corridor of the hospital’s I.C.U unit, I was hit by the overpowering stench of hospital disinfectant.

I welcomed the smell, prayed it could somehow clear my airways of the smell of blood…Of death. I wished for it to clear my mind…

It couldn’t. It wouldn’t, and I deserved no less punishment.

This was my fault. I knew it was.

I may not have been the one to pull the trigger, but those bullets had been entrenched in their bodies because of my ignorance, because of my inability to protect them… This was all on me. 

I was the one who’d brought Rachel into our lives. I was the one who chose to ignore the signs. I was to blame.

And now
, all I was left with, was a deep seeded feeling of guilt, remorse and unbearable pain.

“How long have they been in there with her?” Derek asked, and I cringed.

“Forty five minutes,” I whispered.

Se
ven hours of surgery, and forty-five minutes of waiting, since they’d pushed her body through that door, and told us nothing.

Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees and pressed my thumbs into my eyes.

I couldn’t look at Derek.

“Did you call her father?” I croaked out. “Did you…”

I stopped to catch my breath. “Did you tell him she’s dead?”

“I contacted both of them,” he said in a hoarse voice, and I felt his body shudder. “I called Linda
, too, told her what happened…She said Hope is fine and she’ll keep her, for as long as you need her to.”

I exhaled heavily. “Thank you.”

“Why did she do it, Kyle?”  Derek asked, his voice cracking as his emotions spilled out. “How the fuck could she do that to them?”

“I don’t know.”

“I want to know, I need to know, Kyle. I need to fucking know. She fucking butchered them. Look at me, will you?”

I lifted my head and looked into the tear-stained face of my best friend.

“I’m sorry.”

Derek shook his head. “Why are you sorry? This isn’t your fault
, Kyle.”

The door of the hospital room swung open and we both stood quickly.

“Is she okay?” I demanded.

M
y legs shook with every step I took towards that door.

“There were complications,” the doctor said, gesturing for one of us to come in.

“Which one of you, is her next of kin?”

Derek nodded at me to go ahead, and I stepped forward.

“I am.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kyle

I couldn’t remember the last time I blinked, let alone slept.

I knew it had to have been more than a few days since I slept, less than a week? I wasn’t sure.

Time meant nothing to me anymore.

There was a fear inside of me, a deep rooted, panic stricken fear
, that if I closed my eyes for too long, she would disappear.

I kept my eyes focused on the machine next her bed that was monitoring her heart rate, and comforted myself with the knowledge
, that in spite of the oxygen machine that was pumping air into her lungs, her heart was still beating.

My beautiful princess…

Lee’s pale, withdrawn face, her lifeless body, lay in a hospital bed, rigged up to more wires and machines than I’d ever seen.

A
nd Cam…Oh, god, she was lying on a slab in the morgue, with a hole in the back of her head.

I had to sit here; I needed to be with Lee. There was no other place I could contemplate going.

I hadn’t eaten, I didn’t care.

I had no doubt that if Lee didn’t pull through this, then I would want to be with her.

I didn’t think I could live with the guilt, or live without her.

I wasn’t going to live without her. It was that simple.

“Mr. Carter, you should go home and get some rest,” one of the nurses said.

I didn’t know which one; my eyes were glued to that machine.

“I’m not leaving,” I said,
or at least, I think I said it.

I didn’t know if I spoke the words or thought them.

She didn’t understand, none of them understood.

How they expected me to walk out of this room
, and eat, sleep and live like the world was still turning, was beyond me.

Because my world wasn’t turning, my world was dying in that hospital bed.

How the fuck did they not understand that?

Tightening my hold on Lee’s lifeless hand, I turned my gaze on her.

“Baby, it’s me. I’m here, I haven’t left, and I’ll never leave you again.”

The skin on my c
heeks felt dry and brittle from dried in tears.

“You need to wake up
, Lee. I need you to wake up and get better. I can’t do this without you.” 

I kissed her hand and lowered my head to her bed, resting my forehead on our joined hands.

“The baby needs you. I need you. I can’t…I won’t survive without you. I don’t want to be here without you. I don’t want a life without you.”

“Mr. Carter…Kyle, this isn’t doing any good
, for either of you…”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I shouted, moving closer to Lee’s lifeless body. “Leave us be.”

I needed them all to fuck off and give me two goddamn minutes to make a plan.

I needed a plan.

There was something…There had to be something someone could do to fix her.

I’d asked the surgeon who operated on Lee that very question when she’d come out of surgery.

And he’d filled me with bullshit; bullshit and sheer fucking terror.

“Mr. Carter, your girlfriend’s condition is critical. Whilst we were able to remove the bullet and stem the hemorrhaging in her stomach and repair her bowel without removing it, I’m afraid the wound in her back has proved far more serious.

She was shot directly in her left kidney, ravaging the organ, rendering it unrepairable. We removed the left kidney during the surgery, and curtailed spread of blood, but I’m afraid we found large amounts of shrapnel in her right kidney, which has caused severe damage to the
organ, reducing its rate of function to an alarming eleven percent, too low for Delia to exist on.

We have equipped her with kidney dialysis, but, to be frank
, Mr. Carter, without a kidney transplant as soon as possible, Delia’s prognosis, to put it mildly, is bleak.”

“Have they found a match yet?” I asked.

I knew the nurse hadn’t left, I could hear her breathing from behind me.

“Not yet, I’m afraid.”

I swung my head around to glare at her.

“How hard can it be
, to find a fucking kidney? People die, every second of the goddamn day. Surely, someone out there is compatible?”

“Mr. Carter, you know it’s not that simple,” the nurse said calmly, as if she heard that question a dozen times a day, and in her line of work, she probably did.

But this was different, Lee was different.

She needed to live.

I knew that was a selfish way to think, but I didn’t give a fuck.

All I cared about
, was getting that kidney for Lee. I’d been tested myself. I wasn’t a match.

“Why hasn’t she woken up yet?” I asked, again knowing the answer, but needing the reassurance of a medical professional.

“You know this, Mr. Carter. Lee’s body has weakened, her kidney is under extreme demand. The doctors have put her in an induced coma, to allow her body to repair itself and lessen the strain on her body.”

I turned back to Lee, ignoring the rising swell of panic that threatened to smother me. 

“Do you hear that, baby? They’re going to make you better, and then you can come home to me. Please, Lee, I’m begging you, come back to me, baby.”

*****

“Your cocoa sucks, baby. I mean it, it’s really fucking disgusting,” I mused, as I wiped Lee’s face with a washcloth.

This was day five of coma-induced Lee, and I was getting pissed, and seriously considering buying a kidney online.

I’d heard they sold all types of shit on the internet.

“And don’t get me started on your taste in books.”

I combed her hair as gently as I could, while thinking up as many insults as I could, to try and get a reaction out of her.

I didn’t why I was bothering, considering she was in what I referred to as a ‘
doctor coma,’
but I needed a response from her, and pissing Lee off was usually the best way to get one.

“Do you remember when we were in Louisiana
, and you asked me where I got those bruises? Well, I didn’t tell you then, but I kicked that punk Perry’s ass.”

Lee moved her hand, or at least, I thought she did.

I couldn’t be sure if she was actually moving her hand, or if I was losing my fucking mind.

I suspected the latter, but I rambled on anyway.

“I loved you then, you know. Long before it actually, but that was the night I knew.

I watched you from the corner of the bar. You were all alone on the dance floor in that crummy bar. You were wearing that skimpy ass denim skirt, shaking those sexy hips of yours, and all I could think of was… Damn, this is her. This is my woman. That was the night when my future attached itself to yours.”

Leaning down, I kissed her freshly combed hair, before sitting down to continue my vigil.

My phone went off in my pocket, but I ignored it.

I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

I’d been ignoring all my calls with days, avoiding everyone.

Mike had come by the hospital, and Anna, even my father… But I’d told the nurse on call at the time to send them away. The only person I could handle right now, was Derek.

Derek had told me
the cops had cleared our house, and that Mr. and Mrs. Frey were staying there while they organized the funeral.

If I had my way I’d take a match and a gallon of petrol to the whole fucking place, but I guessed they needed to be close to where their daughter had spent her final years.

I wasn’t sure if I could ever go into that house again, or face those people. Hell, I couldn’t even face my own daughter.

I hadn’t seen Hope since the evening Lee was shot…The evening Cam was killed.

I couldn’t see her…couldn’t look at her.

If I did, I would break. It would be too real, it would become my reality.

I felt guilty as shit for thinking like this, but the longer I put off seeing Hope, the longer I could pretend that this was some fucked up nightmare.

If I saw Hope, the veracity of Lee not recovering, would wreck me.

I couldn’t raise her on my own, I wouldn’t be able to.

There was a knock on the door, and I s
agged in relief.

“Come in,” I said, thankful to have a distraction from my thoughts.

“Hey, man,” Derek said, closing the door quietly. “I brought you some clean clothes, a toothbrush, and your charger,” he said, passing me a small duffel bag.

“Thanks man.”

I stored the bag under my chair.

“How is…everything?”

Derek sighed, and plopped into a chair on the other side of Lee’s bed.

“Fucked up as hell
, dude, Ted is in bits, Mora is worse. She keeps crying and asking for you.”

My head snapped up. “For me?”

“Yeah, she keeps demanding that she talk to you, says she has something important to tell you. Something you need to know. She rambles on and on about how the truth has to be revealed for a perfect match. Ted is at his wits end with her. He’s stopped her from coming here. Poor woman, the grief is driving her crazy.”

“I bet.”

I had a fair idea of what Mrs. Frey wanted me to know, and her telling me how it was my fault Cam was dead couldn’t make me feel any worse than I already did.

“They were sitting in the kitchen, looking at some brochures of caskets this morning, and…they asked me to…Oh, Kyle, I couldn’t look at it man.” Derek shuddered, and slumped forward. “They kept as
king for my opinion on things, like her favorite songs, and which flowers she preferred. I couldn’t deal, you know, told them I had to come check on you.”

“Are you dealing, Derek?”

Derek looked up and me, his eyes full of tears.

“I’m dealing,” he said in a gruff voice. “It would be a lot fucking easier if they went and asked Mike about shit like that.”

I didn’t know what to say, but my heart fucking bled for my best friend.

Derek loved Cam, he always had, even when she went and screwed him over.

I couldn’t imagine what it felt like, to have to sit in a room, with the parents of the girl who had left me for another man, broken my heart and have to help organize her funeral.

“You can stay at the hotel, if it’s easier,” I offered.

“Thanks man, but I have to face this, I need the closure.” Derek shook his head, and cleared his throat. “Speaking of facing things…”

“Derek, don’t,” I warned, my shoulders stiffened.

I couldn’t deal with this right now.

“Linda has been calling me, non-stop. You’re gonna have to see her, Kyle.”

“I can’t,” I growled, blocking out the feeling of guilt in my stomach.

“You have to,” he pressed. “She is your daughter
.”