Week 157 – Sounds, soft beeping entered his consciousness

Sounds, soft beeping entered his consciousness.

Dean bolted upright as memories of what had just happened flood through his mind.

The sound he had thought was beeping he quickly realised was actually Tayla moaning.

“Tay,” he said flipping over the chair she was still bound to and immediately noticing the blood drenching her shoulder and the myriad of bruises. Anger surged through him and he glanced over the chair to see Jason dead, a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. The man didn’t deserve to get off so easy for everything he had done to Tayla.

“Dean,” she whispered, her voice was weak and strained and he was worried that he was going to lose her all over again.

“Hold on, baby,” he begged as he grabbed the small pocketknife he kept on his keychain and began to cut through her bonds. He’d just gotten her back and there was no way he was letting her die.

No way.

He’d walked away all those years ago because he’d been consumed with guilt, convinced he didn’t deserve a sweet, smart, gorgeous woman after inadvertently getting his cousin killed. But now he had her back, she was single, and she’d forgiven him, he wasn’t letting Jason take away their second chance.

She tried to lift a hand, but she didn’t have the strength. She gave him a weak smile, her one good eye locked onto his. “Love you, never stopped,” she murmured.

Then her eyes closed and she went limp.

She wasn’t breathing.

Panic cut through him, he was losing her.

“Tayla, don’t you dare give up on me now,” he ordered as he laid her flat on the floor and covered her mouth with his own, forcing air into her. “Tayla, I love you, I don’t want to lose you, I can’t. Come on, Tay, fight, please, baby, fight for me.”