her through the pain, glad that she’s okay. She’s alive.
The sirens are immediate and deafening as they grow closer. When we pull away, I glance around, realizing Vince and Trent are gone, and Zach has gone immobile. Following the trajectory of my gaze, Mackenzie tenses when she looks down at him.
“Is he… Is he…?”
“Yes.” There’s a riot of contradictions happening inside me at the moment. This is a man I’ve called my brother for most of my life, and he shot me. He tried to kill my girl. He tried to take Ava from us. He beat Madison to death. Like all the years of our good memories are being wiped away, all I can see now, when I look at him, is the bad he’s done. He’s the one who started this. He’s the root cause of all our problems that have arisen. If it weren’t for him and his need for us all to remain a close unit, Mackenzie’s sister would still be alive.
I drop back onto the wood floor as police officers storm inside the house. They take one look around, and the medics have me on a stretcher in no time. Mackenzie’s panicked face comes into view, just as they’re about to shut the ambulance doors and drive me to the nearest hospital.
“I’m coming with you!”
I shake my head even though the small movement has pain ripping through my body. “Ava needs you more than I do right now. Go to her.”
The medic slams the door on Mackenzie, and I drop back onto the bed they have me strapped down to, staring up at the vehicle’s ceiling. I slam my eyes shut, hoping Ava will be okay. I’d trade my life for hers if it meant she got to take one more breath.
After I get patched up at the hospital, they keep me designated to one room, while Mackenzie is in one of the rooms next door, watching over Ava. The doctors have assured us she is going to be okay. We just need to wait for the drugs coursing through her system to wear off. She is lucky he didn’t give her the entire syringe, because if he had? She wouldn’t have made it.
I stir on the uncomfortable bed at the sound of soft footfalls as Mackenzie peeks her head into the room. Her eyes begin to water as she takes me in.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, stopping next to me.
“What are you apologizing for?”
She shrugs, her tears dripping down her cheeks in quick succession. “For doubting you,” she chokes out. Heaving a sigh, I pat the spot next to me on the bed, and she climbs in beside me, snuggling into my good side. I relish in the feel of her soft skin against mine. I could’ve lost her tonight, and I’m forever grateful that I didn’t.
“How did you know we were in trouble?” she whispers into my chest. Her voice is laced with fatigue, but I know her well enough to know she won’t be getting any sleep tonight.
I pause, unsure if I should tell her. “I had a dream. Or at least, I think it was a dream.”
“You had a dream we were going to be in danger?”
I clear my throat, then wince as pain shoots down my side. “In my dream, I thought it was you. But it wasn’t.”
“I’m not following.”
“I had a dream about your sister. She told me you guys were in trouble and that I needed to protect you both.”
She’s eerily silent. I nudge her, forcing her to look up at me, since I’m incapable of doing it myself, and when she does, my heart clenches. There are more tears swimming at the edges of her eyes, just waiting to fall.
“Don’t cry.”
“She came to you,” she chokes out.
I don’t say anything because, as much as I’d like to brush it off as a dream, I know it wasn’t one. It felt too real. She was too real. All of it was too accurate to be just a dream.
Maybe I am crazy after all.
Two Weeks Later
I head to the one place I know he’ll be, needing this to be over and done with. He tenses when he hears my approach, but unlike most people who are fleeing, he doesn’t make a break for it. I pause a few feet away from him, waiting for him to make the first move. He’s packing a bag. He’s running. That’s the only way he’ll escape the consequences of our past.
Of his past.
Slowly,