Time to Bounce (Carter Brothers #6)

Chapter 26

Warning , to avoid injury, don’t tell Gable how to do his job.

— Text from Athena to Gable

ATHENA

“ What the hell is going on?”

Maven .

What was Maven doing here?

Wasn’t she supposed to be in her hospital room upstairs?

I didn’t know.

Didn’t really care.

Gable was dying.

He was having surgery performed on him in the ER .

Only feet away from where I was standing.

“ Baby ,” Auden said. “ Careful .”

“ Tell me, Auden . Tell me what’s going on,” she pleaded.

My eyes were on the door of the room that was now shut, but my ears were open and listening.

I , too, wanted to know what was going on.

What had happened.

How had this day gone so wrong?

“ Gable covered a shift for me today,” Quaid started. “ We had him in the business district. Something happened, and a shooting occurred. We don’t have the details yet, but when Gable intervened and tried to stop it, they turned their guns on him.”

Turned their guns on him.

“ They shot him in the chest twice. Left forearm once. And clipped him on the cheek,” Garrett whispered hoarsely. “ And since the ER was full from the mass shooting, and Gable was the last one to be transported, every OR in the city is filled with other people.”

“ No ,” Maven breathed.

“ Baby , come sit down,” Auden ordered.

Maven ignored him and walked up to me.

She didn’t get in the way of my view of the door, but she did cuddle up to my side and say, “ Come here, Athena .”

I listened to them chatter.

At one point, I heard one of them ask what had happened to my arm, but since none of them knew but me and Gable , they didn’t get their answers.

That’s how we stayed for what felt like hours.

“ What are they doing?” I found myself asking.

“ Getting the bullets out of his chest,” Hollis said. “ One’s lodged in a way that it’s really close to his heart. Took out both of his lungs.”

I closed my eyes and prayed.

I wasn’t much of a prayer.

It hadn’t worked so well for me when I’d been a kid and my sister was taken. But maybe it would help now.

I’d do just about anything to help.

Even pray to a god that I never felt was there for me when I needed him.