To Love a Gangster

To Be Adrift at Sea

Blood. Everywhere.

The wine-colored liquid stained the bright yellow hoodie you were wearing, painting a dark crimson flower in its center and spreading rapidly onto Shorter.

You didn't even care that the man who was desperate to keep you alive in his arms had hurt your feelings in the past,
the pain was too unbearable for you to even let out a cry as the wildfire spread all throughout your body from your head to the very ends of each of your toes. The entire time, you felt like you were submerged under the surface of the ocean, drowning from the world and just waiting for your life to end from all the pain.

Shorter looked down at the base of his shoulder to see you struggling to keep holding on as the life was draining from your eyes. Your face was wiped away completely blank and unresponsive, limbs dangling lifelessly at your sides and a sea of blood webbing together on every surface.

He was not going to let you die in his hands. Not now, not ever. He tightened his grip of you and quickened his pace. "Hang in there Y/n," he ordered you. "Just a little while longer. Help is coming."

Blocking out all the access noises and surroundings of his home town, he raced inside the clinic of Doctor Meredith where he was greeted by the man himself and his sister.

"This the girl," Meredith asked him as Nadia stood frozen from your broken, fragile form. "Yes," Shorter replied urgently. "This way," Meredith ordered, wasting absolutely no moment of time as he rushed you all into the exam room in the back.

"Lie her down here," he told him, gesturing to a metal table in the room that was surrounded by rows of instruments and a bright light hanging from above. A sight that disturbed Shorter and make him break in a cold, apprehensive sweat, but did so anyway.

Meredith came over to your side, edging the gang boss out of the way to check your conditions. His furrowed eyebrows creased across his forehead told Shorter that the state you were in was not something anybody would ever want to hear. However, a small spark of hope was sighted in his eyes as he straightened himself up and faced him.

"She is stable," Meredith stated monotonously. "But only just; I will have to work quickly. Normally a wound this deep out on the streets would result in the cost of one's life." Shorter nodded gravely as he felt a bead of sweat running down the side of his forehead. "Do what you must," he ordered with his hands trembling at his sides uncontrollably.

"Very well," Meredith responded while gathering his supplies. "If you would just wait out in the hall. "I'll call you in if anything changes."

******

With the world caving in on him, Shorter exited the room after giving your hand one final squeeze, leaving you to the unpredictable decision of fate and walked into the eerie hall to join his sister who was waiting for him.

She stood up immediately and rushed towards him as soon as he emerged from the door. "What happened," she demanded with the most utter image of wrath flaring in her eyes. Shorter gave no reply to his sister except for hanging his head down low in complete utter shame and despair.

It felt as if a boulder was weighing down the words in his chest as an unexplainable feeling of numbness washed all over him.

No words could truly ever describe the emptiness he felt as he stood before Nadia with his eyes averted to the floor, not daring to look into the eyes of his older sister for he knew he couldn't face the event that had just occurred.

Not in a million years.

Nadia felt herself ease up and waited patiently for a response for she had never seen this side of her typically vibrant brother. The look of his face laced with guilt told her that he had never regretted something more in his entire life and made him look like a complete stranger. Though she stood there still trembling with anger for y/n getting nearly sabotaged by her abuser once again, she knew it was never her brother's intention to let this happen.