Chapter Thirteen

The driver swung the trespassing car hard to the left to avoid hitting the three parked cars, and Pete was as visible in the high beams as if it were daylight outside. As soon as he was silhouetted, Pete began to run in a zig-zag pattern, turning around occasionally to fire his pistol at the men shooting at him.

Shannon watched anxiously as he seemingly dodged every round. Then he turned yet again, and she saw him fly backward, then crumple to the ground.

No! Shannon’s mind screamed as she zeroed in on Duffy, gun still in his hand, running to where Pete had gone down.

She said a prayer, took a breath, focused, and squeezed the trigger, taking out Duffy’s right knee. His pistol flew from his hand as he collapsed to the ground clutching his leg, his contorted face in her scope proof of his screams carrying through the still night air.

She watched as Duffy’s accomplice also went down, presumably from Larry’s rifle.

Fighting back a sob, Shannon flung the rifle across her back by its strap and hurried down the steep ladder, not caring how many times her motions sent the steel across her back crashing against her existing wounds.

I have to get to Pete, was all she could think.

She stumbled and almost fell down the length of the trail, but caught herself, and kept moving forward at breakneck speed. Some part of her noticed that although it was well into nighttime, she could see where she was going – the moon had opted to come to her aid long enough to get her to level ground. It ducked behind some clouds just as Shannon finally reached the flat, and she began to sprint through the diminishing light, crying, calling out to Pete as she went.

Motion off to her right caught her eye, and she veered that direction. It was Pete, who’d heard her yelling and raised his hand up to try and signal his position.

“Pete!” she yelled and skidded to a stop on her knees, running her hands over him to try to figure out where he’d been hit. When she touched his right shoulder, her hand was sticky and wet when she pulled it back.

She rummaged through his pocket for the penlight, turned it on, and gasped. Pete’s blue eyes were huge and glassy, his face a deathly pale – he’d been shot somewhere around his right collarbone, and it was gushing blood.

“Hang on, baby. Hang on, Pete. You hear me? Don’t you dare leave me, babe. Hang on. Help is on its way.”

Over and over again she urged him to stay awake, focus on her, as she ripped the gun strap off her body, then removed her sweatshirt and pressed it to his wound to try and staunch the flow.

A hand on her shoulder made her scream with fright, and she jumped and looked up. It was Leah, with the cabin’s first aid kit and a flashlight.

The moon reappeared, and now Shannon could make out Larry securing Duffy’s hands behind his back with handcuffs. The fight had left Duffy’s companion the moment Larry had quite literally shot the pistol out of his hand. But just in case either one of the intruders got twitchy, the man that Pete had referred to as Larry’s uncle seemed to be taking great pleasure in leveling his shotgun at both intruders to ensure they remained cooperative.

Shannon saw the lights of police cars and ambulances coming down the long driveway toward the cabin, and she stood and waved her arms.

“Over here! He’s hurt, please help him,” Shannon screamed, then knelt back down at Pete’s side.

He reached up and cupped her cheek, wiping at her tears with his left thumb.

He gazed into her eyes and spoke to her, and she shook her head in frustration.

“I wish I could hear you!” she sobbed. “Oh, Pete, please don’t leave me. Please. You promised we’d have all the dates, remember? No takebacks, Pete. Stay awake, stay with me, baby.”

Two EMTs raced up with a gurney and gently moved her aside to work on Pete, while two other crews tended to the criminals’ gunshot wounds.

Come on, Leah motioned to her.

“I’m not leaving him,” she said firmly.

Leah held up an index finger, then ran toward the cabin.

Shannon remained on her knees close to Pete’s head, watching them work on him, sending up prayer after silent prayer for him to be all right. She was only vaguely aware of Larry and his uncle speaking with the senior police officer on the scene, and Leah walking her direction with another shirt for her to put on.

“I can’t lose him, Leah. I can’t,” Shannon cried, and Leah wrapped her arms around her the moment she’d finished helping Shannon into the shirt.

When the EMTs lifted the gurney, she rose as well, and trotted right beside it to the ambulance. They started to bar her from climbing in the back with him, but Pete reached out for her, and they relented.

She sat to his left, the medic to his right, as the ambulance turned around in the grass, then sped down the long gravel driveway to get to the closest hospital as quickly as possible.

***

Larry and Leah arrived at the hospital about a half-hour after Pete’s ambulance did. They found Shannon in the emergency room lobby waiting for word of his condition.

“They wouldn’t let me go back there with him,” she said, fresh tears streaming. “They made me stay out here, and they won’t tell me anything.”

Larry scribbled We’ll just see about that. Leave it to me! on Leah’s oversized notebook they’d brought with them, and Shannon managed a thin smile.

“Thanks,” she whispered, and Larry winked before heading to the sign-in desk to raise hell on Shannon’s behalf.

Within a few minutes Larry came back over.

Come with me, he gestured, and led Shannon and Leah to the elevator.

“They already took him into emergency surgery upstairs,” Larry told Leah. “The bullet clipped Pete’s brachial artery, and they’ve got to get in there fast.”

Leah relayed the message to Shannon via her notebook, and watched, alarmed, as Shannon went pale and began to sway. Larry stepped forward just in time to catch her as Shannon’s vision swam in an ocean of gray before plummeting into black.

***

When Shannon regained consciousness, she was dismayed to find herself in a hospital gown with an IV needle in the back of her hand.

“What happened?” she mumbled, blinking her eyes rapidly to try to focus them.

She turned her head to the right to see Leah’s anxious face.

“What happened? Where’s Pete?”