Page 45 of Darkness of Mine

“No! No, no, no.” I press harder and his eyes jolt open again. “You stay awake, you hear me, Jude?”

A glassy sheen covers the deep brown, but he keeps his gaze on me.

He’s going to be okay. He has to be okay.

I don’t hear her come up behind me, but suddenly Allie’s at my back. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

I keep my hands pressed against the bleeding and nod to where Jude’s phone sits on the table. “Call 911, tell them an FBI agent’s been shot. He’s conscious but barely. Tell them we need an ambulance now. And put the fucking gun down.”

Allie nods and trades the pistol for Jude’s phone.

His blood is hot and slick under my hands. It’s soaking through my shirt too quickly and I fold over the material, pressing down as hard as I can.

It’s not enough though. Jude’s eyes flutter shut and this time when I shout at him, he doesn’t wake up.No.

Allie keeps muttering that she’s sorry, that it was an accident, but her voice fades away under the whooshing of my own pulse.

I don’t know how long I kneel there, holding on to Jude like my hands are all that’s keeping him tethered to this earth, but eventually someone tugs at my shoulder.

The paramedic pulls me back and takes over. The two of them work fast and, somehow, we end up in the back of the ambulance.

Allie huddles in the corner and I hold Jude’s hand while the paramedic hooks an oxygen mask over his face.

She looks young, like she’s barely turned twenty and her blonde ponytail swishes when she turns to face me. “Your phone’s ringing,” she says.

It’s not till then that I hear the ringtone, feel the phone buzzing in my pocket.

“Here. For your hands.” She passes me a towel and I wipe the worst of the blood off before retrieving my phone.

It’s River. I press to answer and hold it to my ear.

“Care to tell me why your bracelet just notified me that you’ve left the house?”

I stare at Jude’s body lying on the stretcher in front of me and my voice comes out dead. “Jude’s been shot.”

A pause.

“What? Freya, what did you just say?”

I don’t explain what happened. All I can think about is hearing the gunshot and being stuck in my room, unable to leave, unable to help.

“We’re on our way to the hospital,” I say. Then I hang up.

The phone rings again and again but I turn it off. River should understand what it feels like to know something’s wrong and be utterly helpless to stop it.

If I wasn’t locked in my room, if I’d been downstairs with Jude when Allie arrived, none of this would have happened. She didn’t mean to shoot him, she just wanted to see me.

And now Jude is dying, all because River doesn’t trust me enough not to run.

Up until now I’d been giving him some leeway because I know I broke my promise. But I’m done. This is on him.

21

RIVER

Ihave the steering wheel in a death grip as I chase the cars in front of us to the hospital. Everything Freya does and is unravels me and all of the emotions I work so hard to lock down are pushing at the edges of my being.

I’m not the only one losing it. Oz grips onto the safety handle above the passenger door, his other hand curled around the seatbelt as he stares into the road. “She didn’t say anything else? About how he was, what happened?”