fire starter | l.s [1]

nineteen

My eyes squeezed shut as I waited for the bullet to collide with my skin, but it never did. The loud gunshot made my ears ring, it was almost equivalent to the white noise they used back at the camps. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding and slowly opened my eyes. The teenage boy was gone, as if he were never there. I picked myself up from the floor, checking my body for any red spots of blood and turned towards the door where Liam was, holding his arm tightly.

For a second, I hadn't noticed the blood streaming down his arm. But when I did, it was like time stopped. Liam was hunched over, breathing heavily. His blue eyes were dull and his face had almost gone a shade of green. My feet were frozen, I couldn't move. I did this. Shaking my head, I came back into focus and ran towards Liam, almost tripping over my own shaking feet.

"Show me!" I almost yelled, feeling a harsh guilt bubble in my stomach.

Liam slowly peeled his hand away from where he was holding it, blood poured out like there was no tomorrow. He let out a series of curse words as he looked down at the bullet wound. I swallowed the vomit that had risen in my throat and my breathing became fast. I suddenly couldn't get air into my lungs. You are not having a panic attack right now.

I took a closer look at his arm; the bullet had only hit the side of his bicep. Meaning, the bullet hadn't gone directly through his arm and this could hopefully be easily fixed. However, the gash was rather large, and he was losing a lot of blood. Too much blood. Quickly, I pulled the flannel from my waist and wrapped it around his arm, pulling it tight. He let out a low grunt from the pain. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the tears forming in my eyes.

"You're going to be okay. The bullet missed most of your arm," I inform, trying to sound as calm as possible but completely failing, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Liam. If I had just called out to you and stopped being such a worried mess, I could have saved you. I'm sorry."

"Hey," Liam's voice was raspy, "It's not your fault. Stop blaming yourself for everything."

Tears were falling now, I could have not felt more at fault. Looping my arm through his good one, we stumbled out of the bathroom. As we were walking, blood trailed from behind us as we made our way up the stairs, Liam almost losing his balance multiple times.

"Chubs!" I called, my voice cracking.

When we had reached the top of the first flight of stairs, we heard sneakers squeaking against the floor. A part of me felt relieved Chub's appeared from down the hall and suddenly, air was finally making its way back into my lungs. 

"What the hell happened?" Chubs called out as he reached us.

"T-There was a guy with a gun and he tried to shoot Li-Liam. Missed most of his arm though, only got the side of it," I managed to get out between shaky breaths.

"Okay, I can stitch him up. We'll leave for East River today instead of tomorrow. They can probably help us," Chub's explained.

"And if they can't?" I asked softly.

Chub's only stared at me as a response. We continued to walk back to our campsite, Liam's head now resting on my shoulder. It wasn't long until we had arrived, and we were bombarded with questions from Ruby. Both of us were too worried to answer, my throat had gone dry and I could barely get a sound out. Zu had collided with my side, hugging me tightly. I hugged back, a few more teardrops sliding down my cheeks.

Gently, we lay Liam down of a series of desks and Chub's unwrapped the flannel, which was now soaked in his blood. He tossed it aside and grabbed his first-aid kit. Pulling out a needle, a thread, and disinfectant.

"Amelia, come and hold his hand," Chubs glanced at me for a moment, "This is going to hurt like a bitch. Sorry, man."

Liam only responded with a half-hearted thumbs up, it was a very Liam thing to do. Nonetheless, I made my way over to Liam's side and grabbed his hand. I rubbed circles into his skin with my thumb while Chubs cleaned the wound. I watched as Liam's eyebrows furrowed in pain, more lines of sweat forming. He was keeping himself together, I assumed he didn't want any of us to worry. That was Liam for you, caring for everybody except himself. Even when he had a damn bullet wound. I looked over at Ruby and Zu, they both wore identical looks of concern, although I couldn't really work out Zu's expression as she was hiding her face in Ruby's jacket.

Chubs brought the needle up to Liam's arm, giving me a quick glance before poking the needle through the skin. Liam let out a low grunt and he squeezed my hand tightly. I brought my hand to his head, running my fingers through his golden locks. Chub's kept his eyes focused on the wound, I kept my eyes focused on Liam's contorted face. A few tears dripped from his eyes as he bit down on his lip. When Chubs had pulled away from Liam, I dropped down to his level and flicked my red locks behind my back. His chest was rising and falling slowly, and his lips curled into a small smile.

"Do I look as pretty as I feel?" he choked out.

I shook my head slowly, a sad smile settling itself on my face, "You're okay?"

"As okay as I could be," he replied, shutting his eyes for a moment.

I leant forward, about to place a soft kiss on his lips before I remembered we had an audience. So I grazed my bottom lip with my teeth, pulling away from him. I turned to the others, Chubs was cleaning the blood from his hands and Zu had rushed over to engulf me into a tight hug.

"We'll have to leave soon but we'll give Li some time to rest up," Chubs announced.

"Do you think the guy is gone?" Ruby asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Most likely, he would have found us by now if he was still here or wanted to hurt us at least," Chubs answered.

Ruby nodded her head slowly, turning to me, "What about you, Amelia? Are you okay?"

"Mm, yeah," I replied quietly, glancing over at Liam.

Zu pulled away from her tremendously tight hug. Most of the hair had fallen from the braid I had put it in and to be completely honest, she looked like a hot mess. But a cute version. A way-too-cute hot mess.

While Liam slept off some of the pain, the rest of us packed up our things. I hoped that this would be the last time we'd ever had to pack up our stuff, that'd we'd no longer have to be on the run. East River was another chance at life and that was I all I had ever wanted.