Tag: Graham and Sasha

“Hey.”

Graham jumped at the sound of the voice and the accompanying hand that landed on his shoulder.

“It’s just me,” the voice continued and Graham relaxed as it sank in.

Liam. His best friend. Not a threat. Sasha was still safe.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Liam, who was supposed to be with his new girlfriend Cara.

“Heard you were here and wanted to come and check on you,” Liam replied.

“Shouldn’t you be with Cara?”

“She’s resting, and she wanted me to come. We heard about what happened, with the woman.”

“Sasha,” he corrected.

For a long moment Liam just stared at him, and he got the feeling his friend was reaching into his brain, assessing his thoughts, and coming to conclusions Graham wasn’t ready to make yet.

“Like that is it?” Liam asked.

He could lie, say he didn’t know what his friend was talking about, pretend that he hadn’t fallen for Sasha over the last several hours. Hours? Was that all that had passed since he met her?

“Yeah, it’s like that,” Graham agreed. “I just need her to be okay, need her to make it through surgery, through her recovery. Not just physically, she’s been through so much, and I want her to make it through to the other side. I just … need to see her. Anticipation is going to kill me. I know she’s safe. She’s here at the hospital, in surgery, no one can get to her, and I’m not leaving her side any time soon. But …”

“But?” Liam prompted.

Fighting a shudder, Graham looked around him. “I keep feeling like there are eyes on me. Like someone is watching me. Waiting. I know it’s no one. I know that the men who hurt her are all dead.”

“Actually,” Liam said slowly.

“Actually what?”

“I heard that there were only seven bodies found but there should have been eight.”

And just like that the bottom dropped out of his world.

Everything hurt. Her body hurt, her mind hurt, even her hair hurt.

It was hard to focus on anything else through the pain, voices chattered, people touched her without her permission, and she couldn’t seem to remember where she was or what was happening.

Fear gripped her.

Where was Dylan?

Was he here? Was he coming? Was it Dylan and his friends who were touching her?

Thought the haze was one thought. One face.

“Graham?” she cried out, trying to open her eyes but everything was blurry, she couldn’t see, and she needed to see him, needed him to tell her everything was going to be okay, because when he said it, she believed it. “Where are you? Graham!”

“Stop holding me back and let me go to her,” Graham yelled from somewhere nearby. Was Dylan hurting him too?

Someone said something, but she didn’t know what, and then she saw him.

Graham.

Here.

Immediately relaxed.

“You’re okay,” she murmured.

“You are too, honey,” he assured her as he ghosted a hand over her hair. “You’re in the hospital, you got hit by a bullet, so they’re going to take you to surgery.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she mumbled, her voice weak and slurring even to her own ringing ears.

“Don’t want to leave you either, but I’m not going anywhere, okay?” he asked as he brushed the backs of his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m going to walk up with you to the surgical floor, then I’m going to wait right outside until you’re done, and I’m not going to let anyone make me leave.”

Somehow she smiled at his firm words, and the scowl he shot someone she couldn’t see. If the worst happened she needed him to know how she felt. “Thank you, for everything, if I-“

“Hey now, don’t talk like that, you’re going to be fine,” he insisted.

“If I’m not then I want you to know I forgive you for sending me back, you didn’t know, and you came for me, stayed with me, fought for me, I’m so grateful, and I want time to get to know you better, but if I don’t have it then at least I want you to know that I like you, Graham, could maybe even come to care deeply about you. You literally saved my life.”

“Then let’s keep it that way, you keep fighting for me, okay, honey?”

“Okay,” she agreed, because there was nothing else to say. Her energy was waning, and all she wanted was to soak up what could be her last moments with this man, and she didn’t want to spend them arguing about whether she was going to survive surgery.

“Okay, honey, they’re going to sedate you now, okay? But I’m going to be right here with you.”

“Kay,” she mumbled her eyes already fluttering.

As Sasha was being put to sleep for surgery she thought she saw a dreaded familiar face as movement behind Graham in the door to her room caught her attention.

Was that one of Dylan’s friends, or was she only imagining it? There was no time to figure it out, or warn Graham if she was right, because whatever had been pumped into her system had her floating away.

Graham took the curve too fast, almost losing control of the car. Forcing himself to control his raging terror, his need to get Sasha to the hospital as quickly as he could, only because he knew if he didn’t, they wouldn’t be making it at all.

After everything Sasha had endured, everything she’d done to free herself, get her revenge, she wasn’t going to die because he crashed the car.

So he took deep breaths, he fought not to panic as he drove, tried to drive as fast as he could while still maintaining a safe speed, and did his best not to glance over at Sasah’s limp body in the passenger seat.

She couldn’t be dead.

To have survived all she had only to be taken out by a stray shot would be so unfair.

Hundreds of times before he’d driven these same roads, going to and from his job at search and rescue, day trips on his own to hike, overnight camping trips in the summer, never before had they seemed so long, so winding, so perilous.

Finally the lights of the town came into view. Graham didn’t even pretend to follow the road rules, he blazed through red lights, he ignored speed limits, as soon as he hit the smooth, straight city roads he threw caution to the wind.

Didn’t stop until he screeched up to the hospital doors. Then, without pausing to check is Sasha was even still alive because he didn’t want to waste even a single second, and it felt like her time had already about run out, he left the engine running, his door open, snatched her into his arms and ran inside the emergency room.

“Please, you have to help her, I think they killed her.”

“You’re hit,” Graham said, and although Sasha could hear the panic in his voice, she couldn’t seem to figure out why he was panicking.

She’d hit the men.

Maybe she hadn’t gotten all of them?

Maybe there was another threat out there?

“Hit?” she asked, finding she couldn’t even figure what that meant, which couldn’t be a good thing.

“One of the bullets must have gotten you,” he explained.

“Gotten me?” she echoed. Why was she having such a hard time focusing?

“Hold on, honey, I’m not going to lose you, not now, not when you took them all out like an absolute rockstar.”

Sasha heard his words, but she couldn’t seem to process them.

Something was wrong with her.

Just moments ago she’d been focused on her task, mowing down all the men who had abused her with Graham’s truck. Everything had been clear, focused, and she’d felt completely in control.

Now the opposite was true.

“I’m going to get you to the hospital, honey, you just hold on for me okay?”

When Graham picked her up, a rush of white hot agony tore through her body, and she screamed as though somehow that could release a valve and let some of that pain out.

Which of course it couldn’t.

“Sorry, honey, but we need to go, have to get you to the hospital,” Graham said and she felt him moving.

He put her in his car, in the passenger seat this time, and then he ripped off his shirt. Despite the hazy pain, Sasha did notice how ripped he was, and if she wasn’t struggling to just breathe through the agony she would have reached out and traced those perfect abs.

But then he pressed that shirt to her side and the pain increased tenfold and all she could do was scream and then whimper and try to get away from it when he held it there.

“Sorry, honey, I’m so sorry, Sasha, but otherwise you’re going to bleed out. We have to keep pressure on it. Here.” Taking her hands he pressed them to the balled up shirt, and she did her best to keep them there, some part of her understanding what he was saying was true.

Focusing all her energy on just that one task, keeping pressure on her wound, she was vaguely aware of him getting into the driver’s seat, of them beginning to move. Time had no meaning, it was all one big, pain filled blur.

Then eventually without adrenaline from the last minutes, Sasha vision grayed and she dropped into unconsciousness.

Sasha had done it.

Taken down her tormentor.

But as soon as Dylan was down, the others shouted, and headed right for him, so Graham took off at a run into the trees.

They were following him, chasing after him armed, dangerous, angry, ready to punish him for taking their toy away from them and for taking down their leader. So long as they didn’t let that dog off its leash then he stood a chance.

Maybe.

Depending if they were all armed.

As he ran Graham could see a light bouncing about through the trees, growing ever closer. It had to be the other three men, they’d probably heard the revving engine, maybe even the thud as it hit Dylan.

Five men against him weren’t great odds.

Just as the light was going to converge on him he heard it again, the revving of the engine, and then it came crashing through the trees towards him.

Towards all of them because the five remaining men were scattered around him.

Right as it got close Sasha flicked on the SUV’s headlights, blinding them all but giving her the perfect view of her targets. She didn’t hesitate to start aiming her weapon and mowing down the men who had tormented her for months, playing with her body like it no longer belonged to her.

When he was the only one left standing, the vehicle suddenly went still, and then there she was, stumbling out of the SUV. She headed right for him, and he ran for her.

“You did it,” he said as he picked her up and spun her around.

“Is this finally the end of the terror?” she asked, pressing her face into his neck.

“Yeah, honey, you did it, you took them down, you are so amazing.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, you saved me,” she said, but her voice sounded off, strained, weak.

Pulling her back, Graham’s eyes widened as he saw the red stain on her chest. One of the bullets must have hit her.