Chapter 26: Death Over Him
Lance Storm
"Doctor! Where's the fucking doctor?" I hollered.
Arthur and Denver were with me while I was carrying Ember's limp body in my arms.
"What happened? Who is creating a ruckus?" A female doctor came out and immediately gasped as she saw the bloodied woman in my arms. "Let me see the patient." As she approached us, she was so shocked when she saw Ember's condition that she just stared for a few seconds, dumbfounded.
"What the fuck are you standing here like a goddamn statue for? Save her!"
The female doctor took a step back in fear when I yelled at her. I was mad and anxious right now, and the last thing I needed was a doctor who was just going to stare at us like an idiot, instead of actually helping us.
"Boss..." Arthur patted my shoulder to calm me down.
"Nurse!" the doctor called, and a nurse suddenly came with a gurney stretcher, helping me put down Ember.
"Please give her some space!" the nurse announced when a bunch of other patients came to see what was happening.
What the fuck was wrong with these people? My Ember wasn't dead, so why were they looking at us like I just brought a dead woman in?
"Arthur," I mumbled, and he nodded at me before calling someone on the phone.
Soon enough, our men came inside, handling the situation while the doctor was checking on Ember. Denver would handle the doctor's situation once Ember recovered to avoid police cases due to her wounds.
"Her pulse rate is slowing down. Get her to the ER now." The doctor went somewhere, and the nurses started pushing her bed toward the emergency room.
The nurses stopped me from going inside, so I was left pacing back and forth outside the operation theatre.
My heart was beating so fast that I could almost feel myself suffocating. I needed to see her, and I needed to know that she was okay.
I had no idea how long I had been sitting on the bench after I stopped pacing, but I realized it had to have been over many hours when I heard some familiar voices.
"Lance!" I raised my head to see who was calling me, and there I found Alena with Elian and Eltan. I was so out of my mind that I couldn't even tell whose voice it was.
"Guys, Ember is..." I mumbled with a heavy heart. The three of them ran toward me with teary eyes and jumped to give me a comforting hug. Them suffocating me was better than my own heart threatening to do it.
"She's going to be okay, Lance. Ember's a strong woman," Alena murmured, and I heard her sniffle while patting my back.
"Yeah, stay strong," said Elian, squeezing my shoulder.
"We are there for you, Scary Bro," said Eltan.
I couldn't hold back the tears anymore.
# # #
"You told me that everything's fine now. Then, why the hell she isn't waking up yet?" I shouted at the doctor, but it looked like she got used to me yelling at her because she just gave me a blank stare.
"Lance! Behave yourself," Alena warned as she was arranging food on the shelves.
"As I have told you for the last four times, Mr. Storm, we need to give her some time to recover. She lost a huge amount of blood; you just need to be patient. And before you know it, she will already be awake. Now, call me if anything actually happens, not for just shouting at me," she said curtly.
Alena showed her outside, thanking her and apologizing on my behalf.
Ember was fine now, according to the doctor. We brought her to my penthouse after a week of staying in the hospital.
"Lance, you need to stop shouting at her, and tell me what happened," Alena demanded, but I didn't talk. I needed to speak with them, but I needed my parents here first.
Alena was there for me the entire time, and so were Elian and Eltan, despite all of them being extremely busy, given that Christmas was tomorrow and they had needed to wrap up work at the office before the occasion. I was grateful for having them as my family.
After a few hours, the door opened wide, and my mom and dad appeared.
"Mom..." I was not a momma's boy, but seeing her after so long made me tear up.
"Oh, Lance..." I was sitting on the chair beside Ember's bed. She rushed to me and wrapped me in a warm hug.
Mom assured me, "Baby, it's alright. Everything will be fine."
I cried while hugging her tightly. Her smell gave me comfort that only she could give me. Like the time when I was a kid and I tripped over an immense stone, no matter how much my father comforted me, I kept crying. But when I got my mom's hug, the pain had vanished in a jiff. I expected it to happen this time as well, but the pain this time was so much more intense that, even her hug wasn't enough to make it all go away.
"Mom, it's all my fault!" I kept saying, burying my face in her shoulder.
"You need to tell us what happened, so we can help Lance." My dad tapped my shoulder, offering me a supportive smile.
I pulled away from Mom's hug and wiped my eyes. "I killed her parents, Dad," I said devastatingly, and I saw how all of their expressions just froze.
"What?" Elian let out in disbelief, while Eltan and my dad just stared at me.
I told them everything from the beginning and let my feelings out. My mom couldn't believe how cruel our fate was.
"What are you going to do now? Does she already know?" Alena asked when I was caressing Ember's cold hand after I finished talking.
"I don't know. Even if she doesn't, I'll tell her everything and beg for forgiveness."
Ember's face was really pale, and it hurt me so much that I still wish that I was the one in her condition. I could tolerate everything, even if Zeth told me to kill myself, I would do it so that she could live without a scratch.
"What if she decides to leave you? Can you bear the consequences?" Eltan asked flat-out.
I froze at the thought of Ember leaving me. Just the thought was... unbearable. She had already become my life, and if she decided to go, how could I continue living?
"Then, I'm going to beg till she changes her mind." I tried to smile but failed miserably.
They all hummed, and I thought it was the perfect time to say something that I had been thinking about the whole week of Ember's recovery.
"I'm going to leave the gang, Dad," I said abruptly, which caught everyone off guard. I noticed how my mom's eyes softened at me.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and continued, "I'm sorry, Dad. I know you need someone to handle it. Besides, Elian is also pulling back from the gang slowly, and you have no one else to take it over after me, but sorry, I can't continue it. I don't think I can ever give an order to the gang again after realizing that my very first order was the biggest mistake of my life. I'm so sorry, Dad. I know I'm disappointing you, but I really can'tâ" I stopped talking when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
"You don't need to be sorry, son, and please know that you can never disappoint me, no matter what you do," Dad replied gently. "I have always supported whatever you wanted to be. If you think this life isn't for you anymore, then you don't have to continue. You can let it go. Because all I have ever wanted is for you to be happy. Besides, I can always find someone trustworthyâ"
"I volunteer." We all turned to Eltan who spoke up out of the blue. He stood up proudly from the couch he was sitting on and smiled at us.
"You? Really?" Alena teased him that made him pout.
"I know I'm not like Scary Bro, but I can learn. Arthur can teach me everything. My life is getting boring, so I need this. Trust me," he said like he was convincing me and not himself.
No, no, I hated that I was dumping my responsibilities on my little brother. He had always been so passionate about his art; how could he just bored of it? There was no way. But what could be the reason, anyway? Dad would never pressurize him, let alone force him, even with both Elian and I out of the gang.
Eltan looked me in the eye and assured me, "I really want to do this. It's not just because of you, Scary Bro. Just put your faith in me."
Would I be making the right decision by throwing my little brother, who had always been the most expressive and kindest among us brothers, into this ruthless murderous world?
But he really seemed like he wanted to do this, and I didn't want to put a damper on it, so I gave him a small nod.
"Okay, I trust you," Dad finally said as he jumped in excitement and celebrated in his own way.
"Hey, you and I need to talk," Elian told Eltan sternly, and before Eltan could even ask why, he was being dragged out of the room by Elian with the other three following close behind.
Once the entire room was emptied out, I stared at Ember's lifeless face and forced a smile on my face.
"I'm going to take care of you even if you don't want me to," I mumbled.
I lifted her hand to kiss the back of it before walking out. I briefed Arthur on the situation. At first, he was hesitant but eventually agreed.
"We'll have the private plane ready," he said, and I nodded at him as a thank you. I needed to get Ember somewhere far until I knew that we were safe enough to return.
I looked at my family members who were gathered in the living room and listened to the briefing. "You guys can go back to California now. You have got that party tomorrow as well," I told them.
"Hey, the party can be canceledâ" Dad started to say, but I interrupted.
"No, please, Dad. I don't want anything to be stopped because of me, especially things that have been planned for so long," I said and glanced at Elian who planned to propose to Alena over the winter break during their vacation in Colorado. "And we are already leaving tomorrow night, so it's okay, you guys don't have to stay."
Everyone nodded in understanding.
"Can you come to the party then tomorrow? I would hate for the tradition to break," Mom requested.
Ever since I could remember, no one from our family missed the Christmas get-together, and I didn't want to be the reason the tradition broke.
"If Ember was well enough, she could join us, too. But oh, well, she can join next year, right?" Alena asked with a smile.
I managed to smile and replied, "Yes, I'll come to that party, and then..." My voice choked up a little.
"Then, it's goodbye for a while," Elian and Eltan murmured, and I nodded.
It was goodbye to my family, and hopefully, the beginning of a new one with me and Ember.
___
Ember Corbin
My whole body was aching, and my eyelids were too heavy for me to open. I tried to move but stopped when I felt a sharp pain in my stomach.
I tried to open my eyes, and this time... I succeeded. The first thing that welcomed me was a golden evening ray from outside.
Where am I?
I looked at my right and left sides but found no one. It wasn't shocking to me because I had no one to be there by my side. Whom was I expecting? Maybe I expected too much from Lance.
I tried so hard to get up even though the pain was unbearable. I walked toward the curtain and opened the second-floor window. There was melting snow gathered on the ground, and the people on the streets were talking in an unfamiliar language. There was no way it snowed that much in Las Vegas. Heck, I had never seen it snow there in the entire time I stayed there, to begin with.
What happened to me? Did I die and reach heaven already? Of course, a good woman like me would definitely get heaven. Was heaven filled with people like me?
A gush of chilly air sent shivers down my spine and made my wounds sting.
"Ahhh!" My head started aching so bad that it brought me down to my knees. I tried to grab the curtain, but it failed to hold my weight.
"The person who gave that order was Lance Storm," it echoed in my mind. Lance couldn't be the one who ruined my happy family. There was no way.
"Ember!" I felt a hand on my back as the person carried me up from the floor bridal style. His smell was awfully familiar to the point that I hated it now.
"Don't touch me!" I pulled myself away from his touch and tried to stand up properly, but the dizziness suddenly rushed to my head.
"E-Ember?" Lance tried to reach out once again, but I took a step backward and bumped into a small table. "Ember, be careful, please."
I tried to look at him, and I could see his worried blurry face. Fake! He was fake! Everything was fake from the beginning!
"How can you still look at me? Don't you feel any remorse? Did you know from the start who I was? No, don't answer that! I won't believe anything you're going to say from now on. Where did you bring me? Did you think I would accept you after everything you did to me? Guess what? I'd rather die than to see you againâ"
"Ember! Ember, are you okay? Mike, call a doctor right now!" Lance hollered, catching me by my arm as I was about to fall to my knees again.
I wanted to lose his grip on me, but the pain from all over my body stopped me from moving.
"I'm sorry, please. Stay with me, Ember. I can bear your hatred, but not the thought of not having you in my life," he mumbled. "Please stop thinking too much. It's bad for your health."
I was losing consciousness when I felt a warm drop of water on my cheek.
Was Lance crying? But why was he crying? He didn't have any right to shed tears in front of me.
"Please don't appear in front of me ever again," I uttered with pure hatred before darkness took over me.
I hate him. I really hate him.