Summer Wild ✔️

Prologue

There was a loud bang.

Aiden Connor felt a searing heat in his left leg. He collapsed and twisted in shock. The erupting chaos numbed the agonizing pain that bolted through his body. 

Screams rented the air.

He touched his stomach. Something wet and sticky covered his hand. He looked down. His hand was covered in blood!

God! I have been shot! His mind grappled through the confusion. 

His vision distorted at the grisly sight. Someone was shaking him. Struggling to open his eyes, he saw a woman saying something to him. Her voice echoed as if from far away. What was she saying?

Something pressed against his side. He grunted as his breath came out in quick, painful shallows. 

The woman kept a stream of words, which comforted him, albeit indecipherable. Then shrieking sirens clamoured, followed by heavy thuds of footsteps. More shouts sounded in the room.

Aiden groaned as another bout of paralyzing pain squeezed his guts—gathering darkness started to swallow him. Fighting to stay afloat, he looked around blearily to find two men hovering over him. Flynn? What's he doing here? 

Where was she? His saviour. Before he could do anything, the blackness claimed him in a sweeping victory.

When he gained consciousness, snippets of him and Ian busting a botched-up robbery were interrupted rudely by the stark lights of the sterile hallway. Am I on a gurney?

Memories of him graduating from the police academy as his frail father looked on proudly flashed through his mind. Then, he was a young boy again, watching his father build a coffee table. 

No. This isn't real. He took a gasp of breath, trying to cling to reality. Soon, he remembered no more.

When he came to, the glaring lights nearly blinded him. Throat parched, he wet his lips, trying to coax words out of his mouth. The effort made him moan.

It felt as if his body had plummeted a hundred feet to the ground. It hurt badly.

Someone said something, but the jarring bleep sound stabbed at his eardrums. He turned his head left to find himself hooked to a machine. Where was he? His heartbeat raced, chasing away sluggishness. It all came back to him. He had been shot. Twice.

Suddenly, a man wearing a surgical mask materialized. He assured him, "Aiden, you are in the hospital for surgery. I am a doctor..."

Charlotte? Did the asshole get her too? Aiden had jumped in to shield her when the shots were fired. He tried to move, but his body refused to cooperate.

Darkness closed in on him once more.

A tiger brooch flashed through his mind.

It felt as if he had some unfinished business left to do. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what.

His father's voice filled his head. He was reading Jungle Book, one of his favourite stories.

He tried to hold on but lost the battle.

Author's note

Really appreciate all the support for my two earlier works. Thanks, guys.

Thanks from everyone reading from Canada and America.