His Purple Heart

38 - He's not walking away

¨ Trystan ¨

I held her, cradling her soft body to mine. Her skin was warm and sticky with blood. So much blood. On her face, her belly, and running down her legs.

"Trystan, I'm so sorry," she said.

"Shh, I got you." I pushed her curly hair off her forehead and she winced when my fingers grazed her temple. I couldn't bare to see her like this, in pain, deep sorrow eating away at her eyes.

"The... the baby. I lost it." There was so much agony in her voice; my heart broke into a trillion pieces listening to her. "I'm bleeding and it won't stop. It happened when I saw you got shot. I'm cramping too and it hurts so bad."

"I'm taking you to the hospital," I said as I wiped tears from her bloody cheeks. "I'm going to lift you now. It might hurt." I wrapped my arms around her and carefully lifted her off the balding patch of grass. The skirt of her yellow ball gown fell over my arm and I nearly tripped over it. "Baby, I need you to reach out and grab your dress."

She did as I asked, closing her fist around a bloody section of the dress. I looked away and stepped over Alvarez's dead body as I carried her toward my car. I could feel her teary eyes watching me, begging me to at least glance her way, but I kept my eyes leveled to the horizon.

I'd checked her earlier and she didn't appear to have any life threatening wounds. Her wrists were bleeding pretty heavily, and I had no choice but to wrap my tie around the worse one as a bandage. Alvarez had done quite a number on her. The asshole had slapped her several times, punched her too. I could still see his hand print on her delicate skin. I just wanted to shoot Alvarez all over again so I could send him to hell over and over again.

Bruce appeared at my side. "How bad?"

"Could be worse." I stepped aside and allowed Bruce to open the backdoor for me. I put Debra down gently. She curled up into a ball on the backseat of the car and closed her eyes.

I slammed the door shut. She shivered and my body shook with rage. I wanted to roar my discontent to the world. I wanted to drink. I wanted to break something.

So as I drove my girl to the hospital because the ambulance was delayed, I tried to focus on the pain to the left of my stomach where Alvarez's bullet had grazed my skin. I wanted to feel every ache, every sting. It was either that or I had to look into Debra's woeful eyes as she mourned the death of our unborn child. And that, I couldn't do.

I was a fucking mess. I didn't know how to deal with this. I only found out that she was pregnant a couple hours ago and had been too busy trying to get to her to really process the information. Now I had to find out that our baby was dead. . .

I had a body count a mile long, and losing my fucking kid had finally tipped me over the edge. I couldn't even console Debra. I wanted that baby and had been prepared to love him or her with everything in me. We hadn't planned for this, but I always knew that Debra would carry my babies some day.

Doctors swarmed us at the ER, asking a thousand and one questions that I answered on autopilot. Debra had shut down completely and hadn't uttered a single word after she'd told me that she'd lost our baby. I didn't know how to reach her, and honestly, I wasn't trying. I knew that I needed to be there for her, but I couldn't.

I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I was going to break down, and right now I needed to be strong for us. I ran my hands through my hair as the doctors readied a hospital bed for Debra and then proceeded to hook her up to some drips.

Before Debra was taken to the examination room, she gently touched the back of my hand and I was forced to look at her. She looked so sad and fragile and in that moment I knew that I didn't deserve her. I had too many demons hounding me in all directions and I was bound to let her down in more ways than one.