Chapter nine
Rogue Wave
The bass was still hitting even after I walked out the studio. The air was humid as usual, sticking to my skin and messing up my hair, but I wasn’t even tripping about it.
Beside me, my boyfriend Prez was grinning. His arm felt heavy and warm where he draped it over my shoulders. He leaned into my ear; his voice a low rumble that always made my stomach do a slow flip.
“You’re my good luck charm, Nique. I swear, the minute you walked in that studio, the words just started flowing. You’re my muse, baby.”
I laughed, tilting my head back to look at the stars over Mobile. They were faint against the city glow, but they were there, steady and watching. I felt invincible right then. Prez had a way of looking at me that made me believe I was more than I’d ever seen in myself. Like I was rare. Like I was chosen. He was my first love, and back then, that felt like it meant forever.
I was just reaching for the door handle when I noticed the headlights of a car. They were too bright and too still. For half a second, I thought maybe they were waiting on someone.
Then the world cracked open.
The sound of the gunshots wasn’t like the movies. There was no warning swell of music, no slow-motion buildup. It was sharp, metallic, and violent. The first shot split the air so fast my brain didn’t even have time to tell my body to duck. The second punched into me before I understood what was happening.
A hot bloom exploded in my side, searing and jagged, like something had burrowed into me and refused to let go. The breath rushed out of my lungs in a broken gasp. My knees buckled. The asphalt rushed up to meet me, tearing against my palms and scraping the skin from my cheek. The sky tilted sideways, stars spinning, and I couldn’t tell which way was up. The smell of gunpowder burned the air.
I heard the distinct clack-clack of Prez chambering a round before he started bussing back. The sound was deafening, each shot cracking through the night in violent bursts. Muzzle flashes lit up the parking lot in white streaks. He stood over me, feet planted, firing toward the tinted windows of the car that had come alive with gunfire.
Glass shattered. Tires screeched. It was a nightmare, but I wasn’t sleep.
Only when the car fishtailed around the corner and disappeared did Prez drop the gun.
“Nique!”
His voice didn’t sound like him anymore. It was stripped raw. He slid on his knees beside me, his hands shaking as they searched for the wound. When he hooked his arms under mine to lift me, I felt how slick his palms were. They were warm and wet, but I thought it was just my blood.
“Stay with me, baby. Look at me!”
I tried to answer him. I tried to say his name. All that came out was a shallow, wet wheeze that rattled in my chest. My shirt was soaked, the heat spreading down my hip and into my thigh. My fingers twitched uselessly against his forearm.
“Fight it, Nique,” he grunted, dragging me toward the car. “You hear me? Fight.”
He didn’t call for an ambulance. We both knew better. Sirens took too long to find this side of town. He laid me across the passenger seat, his movements frantic but focused, like if he just moved fast enough he could outrun death itself.
The engine roared and we peeled out of the lot.
He drove like a man possessed, one hand locked on the wheel and the other gripping mine so tight it hurt. Streetlights streaked past us in blurred halos of gold. Every bump in the road sent a fresh wave of fire through my side.
“It can’t end like this. You hear me?” His voice cracked, words tumbling over each other. “You’re gonna be a college girl. A track star. Go to Howard.”
His voice started sounding farther away, like he was speaking to me from underwater. My ears rang. A metallic taste filled my mouth. I tried to squeeze his hand back, but my fingers wouldn't obey. They slipped, weak and numb, sliding against his.
The car felt too small. The air too thin.
Then the strangest thing happened. It was like something inside me loosened its grip.
Suddenly I wasn’t in my body anymore. I wasn’t gasping or bleeding or trying to hold on. I was hovering weightless above the speeding car, looking down through the windshield like I was watching something happen to someone who looked exactly like me.
I saw us screech to a halt at the ER entrance. I saw the fluorescent lights flickering above the bay, casting everything in that sickly yellow glow that makes the world look unreal. Nurses in pale blue scrubs rushed toward the car, their shoes slapping against the pavement, and then I saw the part I wasn’t supposed to know.
When they opened the driver’s side door, Prez didn’t move. He was slumped over the wheel, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. His white T-shirt was soaked through, a deep crimson that looked almost black under the lights. Blood had pooled along the console, dripping down near the gearshift. His hand was still wrapped around the steering wheel like he was determined to keep driving.
A nurse pressed two fingers to his neck. She held them there for a long second. Too long. Then she looked up at the doctor behind her and slowly shook her head.
I saw the exact moment the light left him. Whatever had been holding him upright, whatever stubborn force had kept his foot on the gas and his hand in mine, was gone. He had been shot too. Prez had spent his last bit of life getting me to those doors.