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girl lying on top of the kid. She was the one who had come out swinging from the bathroom. Skinny kept his gun pointed at the older dude while I slowly realized what was happening. The girl had blood running out of her s ide as she raised her hand to wipe the golden strands of straight hair off her face. When she did this, the camouflage hat she was wearing slipped back, and my world came crashing down around me.
    “Nooooooooo!” I yelled, as I fell to my knees in front of Elle.
    The boy looked terrified, as if he wasn’t sure what to do. Stay sitting, get up, help Elle, run? He saw her eyes flutter and he called her name. Shit. She had to stay awake.
    “Fernie, we’ve got to get you out of here.” It was like a punch to my chest. She thought the blood was this kid’s. She was so focused on saving this kid, who she apparently knew, that she didn’t realize she was the one bleeding out.
    Every piece of me wanted to freak the fuck out, but I knew I needed to keep it together as the kid started yelling her name.
    She was fading out again as she whispered back, “I’m right here, Fernie.”
    I was done kneeling and propelling into action. “Keep your eyes open, Elle. Look at me, Elle.” I picked her up and turned around to see Chris standing in the hall opposite the bathroom door. It all hit me. This kid was one of hers from that center. Whoever was in that bathroom had called her. She’d taken a bullet for this kid.
    She looked up, finally realizing what was going on. There was no fear in her eyes. She wasn’t afraid when she ran out of that bathroom, swinging a titanium pipe. Under different circumstances , I would have found it humorous that she just happened to have a titanium pipe laying around, ready to beat someone’s ass with it. But it wasn’t humorous. I wasn’t laughing as Elle looked at me, here eyes full of confusion. “J?” She said it as a question. She didn’t realize what just went down when she looked at me with furrowed brow.
    “What the fuck, J?”
    I looked behind me. “Chris?”
    “You fucking shot her?  You fucking shot her!” 
    “I didn’t know it was her.”
    Chris looked ready to murder me, baseball bat in hand. Fuck, how did all this happen? I was supposed to be freaking out about giving Elle Gram’s ring, not holding her bleeding body.
    “You’ve had your dick in her since there was snow on the ground and you didn’t know it was her?”
    Fuck fuck fuck. I didn’t want to deal with Chris right now. She was just as hardcore as Elle. That’s why they were such good friends. But Chris—man, Chris had a few years on Elle, and was way more aggressive. She didn’t mince words, and she didn’t hesitate to put me in my place. In that moment though, I knew I needed her so I kept the string of profanities ready to erupt from my mouth at bay. Instead I told her, “Pull your fucking car up. We gotta get her to the hospital.”
    I held her the entire way, trying to get her to keep her eyes open. I tried my best to speak in a calm voice, so as to not freak her out. I had taken my shirt off, and was holding it against her side where the bullet had gone in. Her breathing was labored, but she was hanging in there. It wasn’t until Chris was pulling the truck up to the ER that she lost the fight, and her eyes closed.
    I had the door open before the car came to a complete stop. I can’t imagine what people thought of a 6’5” mother fucker like me, in a Kevlar vest no less, carrying a woman with a gunshot wound into the ER. While it was happening, I really didn’t give a fuck. My singular focus was on the woman in my arms, my sun, and the light bleeding out of her. Everything happened in fast forward. I don’t remember even saying anything to Skinny. Did I? Did I say a word to him before I left? I vaguely recalled a head nod, but I could have been delusional by that point.
    A gurney was brought out, and the doctors we re taking Elle from me. I kept hold of her hand as I raced