Free Fall || Dylan O'Brien Fanfiction

twelve: crash

An odd customer walks into the antique shop the next day. It's weird because he's not elderly, and he actually seems interested in the antiques. He's probably a couple years older than me.

A family also walks in. A wife with two bored looking kids and a husband. The two wide eyed children follow their mother around, and the father looks around separately. A normal family. I feel myself smile, because maybe Dylan and I will have that one day.

The odd man walks up to me. "Can I help you?" I ask politely.

"Yeah," he says smoothly. He brings his hands up where I can see them. My voice catches in my throat; he has a gun. I'm too surprised to hear what he says next, all I catch is a muffled voice.

Bang! I snap back into reality to see the bored looking husband lying on the floor, choking on his own blood as it dribbles out of his mouth. "Get the money and nobody else gets hurt," the shooter snaps. My eyes focus on the wife and kids, who are frozen in terror. The wife stands in front of her children, trying to protect them. "Hurry up!" The shooter yells at me, but I just can't tear my eyes away from what's left of the family.

The gun goes off again, and my upper side blossoms in pain. I hear a thump, and I'm looking up at the ceiling. The voice in my head begs me to be silent, so I bite down on my shirt to keep from crying out in agony. Blood streams out of my bullet wound. It's warm and sticky. It feel so wrong.

I'm faintly aware of sirens in the distance, and four more gunshots.

"Hey," someone yells. "I think this one is still alive! I need a medic, please!"

I spit my shirt out of my mouth. I can make out a figure from my blurry vision, and then I feel someone press down on my wound, which hurts like hell.

"Stay with me, sweetie. What's your name?"

I can tell it's a woman by her voice. "Juliette," I mumble. "Am I going to die?"

"I'm in no position to say," she replies. "You'll be fine, I'm sure."

I feel someone lift my body off the ground, and onto something soft. A gurney, maybe?

"If.. I die, I need to tell my fiancé..."

"You're not going to die, sweetie. Isn't that right, doc?"

I don't hear a doctor reply to her. There's a painful silence.

"Tell him that he means everything to me, and tha-" I start to cough, which hurts a lot.

"That you love him and you're sorry?"

I nod the best I can, unable to say anything else.

"Got it. You're going to be okay, Juliette. I'll let him know where you are."

Then car doors slam loudly, and a siren wails in my ears. I'm in an ambulance.

"Mark, hook her up to an IV, I'll get this set up..." A man says. I hear rustling. "Stay with me, Juliette. Stay with me."

I try to, I try to keep my eyes open, but it's like they're made of lead. I will my heart to continue beating. The pain stops suddenly, and I figure it's okay to close my eyes. I'm so tired...

"Damn! Juliette, if you can hear me, stay with me..."

I slip into sleep. The dark is so much more peaceful than the inside of the ambulance.

As I slip into the void, that little voice in my head says, "What about Dylan?" By the time I realize I'm letting go of life, it's too late to wake back up.

-

Dylan's POV

"Where's Juliette's fiancé?" I turn towards the voice. There's a woman wearing a bulletproof vest with "POLICE" printed on the chest, so I take a pretty good guess of who she is. I hurry over to her.

"You're him?" She asks me. "Aren't you in that mov-"

"Yeah, yeah, what about Juliette?" I interrupt impatiently.

"She wanted me to tell you something if... She wanted me to tell you something."

I nod, asking her to continue.

"She said that you mean everything to her, and she loves you, and she's sorry."

I turn away and run a hand through my hair. My heart shatters. My lover, my fiancé, my best friend, I can hear the truth about the situation in her tone. Juliette is going to...

"She's going to die, isn't she?" I wipe my eyes.

The cop meets my eyes. "I don't know. I'm so sorry, I really am." She gives me her phone number just in case I want more details about what happened, but I don't. My heart is broken, and I don't want to break it more. Hopefully Juliette will be okay, and that would fix everything in the blink of an eye.

I sit back down and look around the quiet waiting room. There's a couple people I know, but most of them seem to be here to support Juliette. Her brother Jayden, and his wife Mary are here. So are Ana and Luke, along with Mason, who is sleeping in his stroller. Luke attempts to get Ana to drink coffee, but she seems unable to do anything. She just shakes her head and stares down at the floor with glassy eyes. Ana and Juliette have been best friends for years and years, so this all must be very hard on her.

"Where's Juliette's family?" A doctor asks. He looks professional, wearing white with gray hair.

Everyone here for her stands up immediately. "Is she going to be okay?" Ana asks, her voice breaking on "okay".

"She'll live, yes, but only if her parents decide to keep her on life support. She slipped into a coma as well. She's very lucky."

A thick silence clouds the room. We all know about Juliette's parents... Her abusive mother and dead father. I guess the doctor has no way of knowing.

"Don't tell me she's lucky!" Ana snaps suddenly. "Don't tell me that my best friend is lucky, she got shot for God's sake! Juliette isn't lucky, jus-"

"Shhh," Luke steps in front of Ana and faces her. "It's okay, babe, she's alive. Shhh..." Ana collapses in his arms, shaking with sobs. With an apologetic smile to the doctor, Luke walks her outside for some air, knowing Mason will be in good hands.

"You can see her soon, though. In an hour or so, three at a time. Sound okay?"

A/N
This is the last chapter, the epilogue will be up soon. Thanks guys :)