Princess (American Princess #1)(46)
Author: Courtney Cole

“We’ll just do it this way.”

Paul only had time to gasp before Jillian calmly squeezed the trigger and he staggered backward, crashing through a window.  Randall’s shout split the air. Time seemed to stand still as they all watched Senator’s Hayes’ body roll to a stop on the ground outside and remain unmoving.

“He’s dead because of you,” Jillian hissed.

“No!”

Randall broke the silence and lunged forward like a cannon, grabbing Jillian and spinning her around.  She struggled against him, but he moved with the strength of a raging bull and he was much larger than she was. With one hand, he forced Jillian’s gun straight up in the air.  With the other, he held her slim body tightly to his chest.

“Now!” he yelled to Stephen.  “Do it now!” He glanced at Sydney.  “Syd, get back!”

Jillian screeched wildly, flailing like a maniac. In the midst of the struggle, her gun went off, shooting a hole in the ceiling. Randall grasped her hand tighter, squeezing until her knuckles turned white. Sydney looked in relief at Stephen before she moved away from her parents.

Stephen didn’t waste another second. He stepped into the doorway, took quick aim and shot Jillian squarely in the chest. The impact sent both she and Randall flying backward into the breakfast bar, sending the bar stools flying into every direction.

Sydney screamed as blood splattered onto her.  She wasn’t sure whose blood it was, because the entire kitchen seemed to be a scene from a bloody nightmare. Her feet slipped and slid in the pooled blood on the floor and she tripped and fell backward.  Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.

Her mother hit the ground and flopped over, face down.  She lay still as her blonde hair quickly became saturated with her own blood as it pooled around her. Her gun rested limply in her motionless hand.

Randall lay beside her, his breathing hard and labored, but his eyes open.  Sydney rushed to his side, pausing only to kick her mother’s gun across the kitchen floor.  She tried not to notice that her father’s hand was covered in blood as she grasped it tightly to her chest.  She swallowed hard and focused on her dad’s face.

“Daddy, please.  Don’t die.  please,” she pleaded as Randall closed his eyes.

“I’m trying not to, Princess,” he whispered, but he didn’t re-open his eyes.  She gripped his hand even tighter.

He struggled to speak.  “Is Paul…”

Sydney swallowed hard and glanced at Paul.  He was laying completely still outside of the window.  The shattered window was spattered with blood and she didn’t see Paul’s chest moving.  She didn’t think he was breathing.

“I don’t know, daddy. I can’t tell,” she murmured. 

Even she could detect the doubt in her voice, however.  Randall nodded almost imperceptibly.  Sydney felt Stephen’s presence directly behind her before she felt him lightly grasp her shoulder.

Glancing up at him, she asked hurriedly, “Stephen, can you call an ambulance, please?”      She let go of her father’s hand only to use her own to try and staunch the bleeding from the wound in her father’s shoulder.   She gasped as she saw how much blood pumped out around her hand.  He was losing far too much blood. 

“Daddy, you’re going to be fine,” she insisted.  She wasn’t sure if she was assuring herself or Randall.  She began praying so quickly that it sounded like a mantra.  “Please, God.  Please, please, God.”  She couldn’t even manage to finish the prayer.  She knew that God would know what she was praying for.  And she just kept repeating it.  “Please, God.  Please, please…”

She could hear Stephen speaking on the kitchen phone, rushing his words as he requested an ambulance.  At the exact same time, she heard loud footsteps charging through the house and men yelling “FBI!”

She didn’t feel any relief, however, because she could feel her father’s life slipping from him as his body started to shake.

“Please, daddy.  Don’t die…”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The fact that she should be devastated didn’t escape her.  Her mother was lying in a pool of blood in front of her, but somehow Sydney couldn’t bring herself to react.  She knew that it would hit her later.  All of the pain from her mother’s betrayal and hatred would sink in when this was all over, but for now, she only felt numb.

She stood silently in the corner of the kitchen with Stephen’s arm wrapped around her shoulder, watching the paramedics work on her father.  He was on a gurney now, strapped to an oxygen mask and an IV bag.  The paramedics were working so fast that their hands seemed to be a blur.  He was still alive, though, and that was the important thing.

Paul Hayes was not.  Neither were Ben Keyes, Stella Wilkinson, Harrison Daniels, Deidre Wilcox or Jillian Ross.  Six lives had been taken in one afternoon.  It seemed like she should feel differently, now that the balance of life had shifted so much directly in front of her.  But she still only felt the strange numbness consuming her.  It all felt almost surreal.

She sank to the floor and Stephen sat next to her.  Someone brought her a blanket and she didn’t bother telling them that she wasn’t cold.  She was shaking from the shock.  Stephen wrapped it around her shoulders anyway and held her hand.

“Sydney, I’m so sorry.  This shouldn’t have happened. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

His voice was pained and it caught in his throat.  She turned her watery hazel eyes to stare at him, blankly at first and then with compassion.

“Stephen, none of this is your fault.  I’m alive because of you. My dad is alive because of you.  Thank you.  You saved me.  Again.”  She leaned into his shoulder, resting her head against him.  “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he murmured back, rubbing her shoulders lightly.  She closed her eyes, enjoying the comfort that she found in his touch. His were hands that would never hurt her.

“Sydney?”  They both looked up in surprise at the tiny voice.

“Danny!  Where have you been?”

With everything that had happened, Sydney had completely forgotten about the little boy.  She hadn’t seen him since she left him in the bath tub.  It seemed like ages ago now.