On The Border - Marry Him Or Die

2.102

Lucas’s POV

I felt it right away.

Her body relaxed completely, her head rested against my chest, and her breathing got cut off in the middle of my kiss.

“No, no, NO!” I began panicking, my heart threatening to explode with unbearable pain.

“ANGEL!” I screamed out, touching her face with my shaky hand, unable to believe that she was gone, ripped away from my arms.

The car screeched to a halt abruptly and the man driving our car got out quickly and sprinted inside the ER to alert some doctors.

I looked at my mom in shock and saw her tears falling down in a heavy flow.

“Mom….” I whispered in agony.

She shook her head and said emotionally “Stay strong Lucas. She’s not gone yet, they’re going to bring her back. She’s tough and she’s going to fight like hell to come back to us, to you. Don’t you give up yet, you hear me?”

My side of the door opened and in a matter of seconds, she was taken away from my arms onto a stretcher and hauled inside into one of the ER rooms.

Alex took Jenny into another room to be examined while mom stayed outside the hallway with me.

I wasn’t doing so well. Not well at all.

I was spiraling out of control. Slowly suffocating. Deeply falling apart. All of that was happening inside me while on the outside, I was a frozen statue standing against the wall. Numb. Broken. Lost.

She died. Right in my arms. She left.

What if they can’t bring her back?

What if the doctor comes out of that room and tells me he’s sorry for my loss? What’s going to happen to me then? How will I keep living if I lost her? How will my heart keep beating with an empty, dead soul wandering around aimlessly inside me?

Was that really our last kiss? The last time I heard her voice? The last time she told me that she loves me? The last time I got to play with her hair? The last time I saw her magical blue eyes? The last time I breathed in her scent? The last time….

The door opened, interrupting my panic attack from fully overwhelming me, I didn’t have time to prepare myself for the worst case scenario playing in my head, because everything happened in the blink of an eye.

The medical staff were sprinting out of the room super fast with Angel’s body still on the stretcher, they were moving her to surgery. They were able to restore her heartbeat but it was weak because of the blood loss she suffered.

My mom had the same blood type as hers and she was taken to a room to donate blood for her.

I stayed right where I was, still frozen, still shocked, still scared shitless to have hope only to be crushed again, so I didn’t let it consume me yet. I didn’t let it course through me, and have it get ripped into pieces if she doesn’t make it through surgery. I’ll have hope when I see her awake. When I hear her voice. When I taste her warm lips again. That’s when I’ll let relief inside me. Not a moment before.

As for now, I was operating on auto pilot. Barely holding myself together with tape and glue.

I don’t know how long I stood there, it could have been minutes and it could have been hours, I didn’t know. My mind was already a thousand miles away. It was lost in all the memories I shared with her, all the happy ones and the sad, hurtful, angry ones. Played like a movie, moving from scene to scene. Until my movie got interrupted and I got sent back to the present when two people held me from both sides and hugged me tightly.

“She’s going to be okay” April said softly.

“Yeah man, she’s tough, she’s going to pull through” David said firmly as he patted my shoulder supportively.

I remained stiff and distant. I knew they meant well, but I didn’t need their comfort, I needed hers and hers only. It was the only comfort that could actually heal me and bring me back to the land of the living.

A while later, mom returned with Alex and Jenny by her sides. Despite my grieving, I still took the time to check on Jenny. Her health was as important to me as Angelina’s.

“You okay?” I asked her in a raspy voice.

“I’m okay, Lucas. And she’s going to be okay too” she said fiercely.

I gulped with difficulty and said in a hard tone “I hope so”

We moved to the floor where the surgery was taking place in order to get faster updates.

We all settled down on the waiting chairs, silent and waiting.

An hour passed and no update came, mom said it was a good thing. Because it means that her heart must have stabilized and her bleeding has stopped during surgery and that they must be taking their time with controlling whatever damage the knife made to her body. It still didn’t make me give in to hope and let it in, not yet.

At some point, Dean came to give me a new, black shirt and the phone with the recorded video on it. I wore the shirt and took the phone from him. I was about to hit play when Jenny said tightly “I don’t recommend you to watch that video right now, Lucas. Maybe you should wait till after the doctors come out and tell us how sh…”

“No, I’m not waiting. I want to see who the son of a bitch that stabbed her is” I said coldly and hit play.

Alex leaned closer while David came to stand on my other side, they both were curious to watch and listen to the video as much as I was.

We watched it all, from beginning to end without saying anything until the moment I announced my grand entrance with the exploding wall. That’s when I stopped the video and stared blankly at the wall opposite me.

My mind was replying the video in my head. Showing me how much Angelina was trying to give her life so that none of them get hurt in any way.

A part of me was mad at her for throwing her life away so recklessly without considering how that will make me feel. But that was a very irrational part, because she almost died so that my family could stay alive. She saved them not just for Alex, and David, and me but for her too. Because they are as much hers as they are ours.

I remembered her words to me when she looked at the camera ‘Enjoy the show, baby. I love you. Don’t worry, he’s still going to be functional enough for you to finish him off, once I’m done beating up his ass’

She was saying goodbye. She knew she wasn’t going to make it out of this alive, she made sure of it when she kept provoking him over and over again every time his attention shifted to someone else.

A sob ripped through me, I couldn’t remain a statue on the outside any longer. I collapsed on the ground on my hands and knees and totally lost it as my sobs got mixed in with angry growls and my bare fists hitting the solid tiles of the floor.

I couldn’t protect her. I wasn’t deserving of her. She might die because of me. Because I made her stay, vowing that no harm will ever come to her again, vowing that she will never know loss or pain ever again. And I fucked all that up, I didn’t live up to my vows.

I failed her.