Owen made a rolling turn off the wall to face the living room, and I took my opportunity. I broke from his hold and jumped on his back. I tried to wrap my arms around his neck, but I was no match for Owen’s size and strength. He easily bucked me off his back. I crashed to the hard wood floor and landed on my tailbone. I heard the crunch and felt a sharp pain run up my spine.
Owen didn’t take his eyes off of me as he shot blindly into the living room. The blast from the gun shook the walls. It felt more like an explosion than a shotgun firing. I covered my ears to block out the high-pitched ringing that overtook me. I couldn’t hear anything.
“Jake!” I cried out.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw Owen staring into the living room. He let the shotgun drop to his side. It slipped from his hands onto the floor. His eyes were wide, his hands shaking.
“Jake!” I cried again. I used every bit of adrenaline I had to rush past Owen and into the living room. He didn’t try to stop me. “Jake?”
I still couldn’t hear. I didn’t know if he’d responded.
And then, I saw.
Of all the things I had been through in my life—the starvation, the beatings, abuse after abuse, losing everyone who had ever meant anything to me in one way or another—none of these things could have prepared me for the devastating sight of my daughter crumpled on the floor against the front door, with her yellow Curious George t-shirt turning a deep, wet red.
I ran to her and slipped her limp body into my arms, propping her up on my knees. I wiped the hair from her face. “Georgia!” I screamed trying to wake her up. Her eyes were closed. There was so much blood. I felt her neck for a heartbeat, but couldn’t feel anything beyond my own.
“Mama,” she said. It was weak. She was alive but barely. Help. She needed help. I couldn’t lose her.
I couldn’t let my Georgia die.
The front door opened again, and this time Jake stepped into the living room, a yellow envelope in his hands. “Bee—where the fuck are you? We need to fucking talk—now!”
He’d barely finished his sentence when his gazed dropped to where I held Georgia on the floor. He dropped the envelope, scattering black and white photos all over. In one stride, he was kneeling next to us, pulling Georgia into his arms.
“Owen,” I said, looking to the place where Owen had stood just seconds earlier. The shotgun on the floor was the only evidence he’d ever been here.
I pulled open the door and we rushed from the house. Before we got to the truck, Bethany tore into the yard in a bright white Mercedes SUV and jumped out of the driver’s side, running toward us. She had the start of a black eye, and blood was dripping from the corner of her lip. Her mouth fell open when she saw Georgia in Jake’s arms. “I... I came to warn you... I tried to stop him...”
“Open the fucking door!” Jake yelled.
Bethany swung open the passenger side, and I jumped up into her car. Jake laid Georgia over my lap carefully, so carefully. He jumped behind the wheel as Bethany fell into the back seat.
Instead of using the main roads, Jake drove through a strawberry field and the dairy queen parking lot before turning onto the dirt road that led to the back of the hospital.
“Jake, I don’t think she’s breathing!” I shouted. I couldn’t feel air coming through her nose, and I couldn’t see her chest rising.
I wished the hospital were closer.
Jake accelerated Bethany’s car to speeds his old truck could’ve never come close to. He reached out and grabbed Georgia’s hand. “We’re almost there baby, hold on, Gee.”
She wasn’t responding anymore.
“Dear God... what has he done?” Bethany cried from the back seat.
Jake managed to turn the thirty minute ride to the hospital into a little over ten minutes. They were still the longest ten minutes of my life.
The SUV was barely in park in front of the hospital when Jake hopped out and ran around to my side opening my door, removing Georgia from my lap. “Daddy’s got you, baby girl. Daddy’s got you. You’re gonna be okay, Gee.”
We ran through the sliding doors to an empty waiting room and an even emptier reception area. Jake burst through a door marked Hospital Staff Only and I followed quickly. We ran until we saw a group of nurses sitting around a vending machine. “We need help!” he roared. “Get a fucking doctor now!”
The nurses sprang to life when they laid eyes on my lifeless daughter. One wheeled out a gurney while another paged a doctor. He arrived seconds later and helped us lay her on the gurney. “She was shot. That bastard shot her,” I told them. Somehow I didn’t think it would be as obvious to them as it was to me.
They placed a mask over her face with a blue ball pump attached to it. Then they were running, the nurses wheeling her down the hallway and squeezing the pump while the doctor shouted more instructions. They disappeared behind a set of double doors.
When we tried to follow them through, another nurse stopped us. “Let them help her,” she said, halting us with her hand.