A Fresh Start

Endgame

I woke up in a sterile white room, there were machines around me, and the bright florescent lighting hurt my eyes. I was in the hospital, I sat up quickly as I remembered the events of the day before. I vaguely noticed the beeping sound that started when I sat up. A nurse quickly rushed through the door looking very concerned.

"You're awake! Oh good, but honey you've got to calm down." She gestured to the heart monitor to the side of me. She didn't understand, I needed to know what happened, my heart had a right to palpitate.

"What happened?" I asked as the nurse guided me into a sleeping position. 

"You were shot honey, and knocked out. The bullet hit your thigh and thankfully missed most of the important stuff but you got beat up pretty bad. As of now, you have two broken ribs, a pretty severe concussion, and a healing leg wound." I must have looked shocked because the nurse jumped to reassure me. "You won't have any permanent damage, considering the circumstances you were very lucky." That was great and all but I needed to know what happened to King and Maria.

"Did they catch him?" I asked as the nurse adjusted one of the machines to the side of me.

"From what I've heard they do have someone in custody. I'll bring in Officer Lopez to talk about that with you. Your whole family has been here constantly, I was finally able to convince almost all of them to go get some rest. Officer Lopez and one of the boys refused to leave." I smiled at the realization that Sebastion was here.

"Can you bring both of them up here please?" I asked the nurse, making sure to employ my puppy eyes. To my relief, she nodded and after fixing one more wire exited the room. 

Soon the door opened and Sebastion rushed in wasting no time before placing his lips on mine. When we broke apart I was able to access the two in front of me. "Well you two look like crap." I said, happy to see smiles break across their faces. 

"Yup, she's gonna be ok," Sebastion declared with a smile. "Oh, um, and officer Lopez if you could just forget the little moment before."

"I was young and in love before to guys, I'm not gonna tell. You two are more mature and ready for a relationship than plenty of my co-workers." She laughed and continued on saying, "Marie you probably have a lot of questions huh." I nodded vigourusly, my mind swimming with curiosity.

"Where's King, what happened after he shot me, is anyone hurt-" Maria cut my jumble of questions off.

"Whoa, hang on, I'm gonna answer one at a time." I nodded and elbowed Sebastion who was smirking into my hair. "First of all the Jacksonville police department owe you their thanks. We've been trying to nab that snake for years and now we finally have him thanks to you." I felt the blush rise in my cheeks but I stayed quiet, eager to hear the answers to my other questions. "I want to personally thank you. If you hadn't tackled King when you did there's a good chance that I'd be down in the morgue. You are truly one of the bravest and most selfless people I've ever met, if you ever want a job in law enforcement you have a letter of recommendation from me."

"So no one else was hurt?" I asked quietly, praying that the answer was yes.

"Not seriously. Jamie got sliced by a knife but the doctors stitched him up no problem. Other than that the only injuries were some bumps and bruises. It helped that we took King's entourage by surprise. They weren't expecting their own people to turn around and cuff them." I laughed in response, my chest feeling lighter now that I knew that no serious injuries were sustained. There was one question I had yet to ask, how did a sixteen-year-old girl take down a lethal drug lord.

"Maria how the hell am I still alive." I felt Sebastion's arms tighten around me as I asked my question. I squeezed his hand before turning to Maria expectantly. She looked as though she was in deep thought.