Sugar Daddy Season

Chapter 26 ~ Always

         Lights flash and skip across the exterior of the club as a paramedic tends to me, but I'm not paying attention to a word she says. Instead, I'm focused on the other paramedics, with little puffs of fog escaping their mouths as they count to three before scooping Enzo onto a stretcher. They wheel him to the ambulance and slide him inside, so I rush to him, despite my paramedic yelling that she's not done with me.

I don't care.

I can't let Enzo out of my sight.

"I'm going with him!" I shout to whoever can deliver the message to my brother and hike into the ambulance. 

Two of the paramedics continue working on Enzo and rip open his shirt to get to his wounds. I flinch when a button from his dress shirt hits my cheek, and there's a low humming in my ears as I watch their mouths move, but I don't hear a sound. I don't even hear the siren blaring or feel the bumpy movements as we navigate traffic through the city. Instead, it's my frantic heartbeats. 

There is so much blood oozing from countless stab wounds in Enzo's torso, and I want to plug them with my fingers, but another paramedic takes my hands to examine the cuts on my palms. She says something, but I don't hear a word. I'm too focused on the others as they work quickly yet calmly to stop Enzo's bleeding. My eyes widen when one practically straddles him to begin chest compressions. That's when the alarm on the EKG machine catches my attention. I wish Anika were here to tell me what the squiggly lines mean, but I've gathered enough to know that if they're giving him CPR, then it's not good.

When we arrive at the hospital, it's a controlled frenzy as two of the paramedics rush to haul Enzo out of the ambulance with the other paramedic still giving him CPR. The emergency staff takes over as a nurse climbs onto the stretcher to take over with chest compressions and they wheel Enzo inside like it's an Olympic race. I run alongside them until I'm told I can't proceed any further and have to stay behind. I fight with them—insisting that I cannot leave Enzo's side, but the medical team doesn't have time to entertain my demands. They push through another set of double doors, leaving me behind, frozen, trembling, and covered in blood. I don't even notice someone's hand on my arm until they snap their fingers in my face. My eyes flitter, then focus on whoever this rude person is.

"Ma'am, you're in shock." The male nurse takes my elbow and guides me away from the doors. "Let's see to your wounds. Looks like whoever attacked your friend got you pretty good, too."

I shake my head and point behind me. "But—" 

"They're rushing him into surgery. We'll know more in a bit. He's in good hands."

My feet are reluctant, and I keep looking over my shoulder at the double doors that separate Enzo and me. I need to be by his side, hold his hand, tell him I love him, and never let him go, but I follow the nurse into a room instead. 

◇◇◇

It feels as if hours have passed, but I honestly don't know how much time has gone by, and the scuffed linoleum tiles in the emergency room will need to be replaced from how much I'm pacing. With everything that happened with Enzo, I was too hysterical to notice my own wounds, and it turns out the coward who attacked us, stabbed me three times. Thankfully, the asshole missed my organs. I should be lying down, but I can't sit still when I have no idea what is going on with Enzo.

"Ma'am, you need to get back on the bed. We're not done addressing your wounds," a nurse says while attending a patient a few beds over.

"What's going on with Enzo." I continue pacing. "No one will tell me."

"Who?"