Post 27

Peter understood that Gerald was no longer a threat to him. His rifle had no bullets in it and it was halfway across the yard from them, and right now, Gerald was lying on his back on the grass, about ten feet away from him. When Peter glanced over at him, he was hiding his head with his arms and rolling slightly back and forth.

Though Peter could feel every injury he sustained, he had but one thought: getting to Laura. He sprinted as fast as he could on unsteady legs across the yard, slowing down only as he got close to where she was lying in the grass. She hadn’t moved since last he was near her. He knelt by her side, almost choking on her name. He had to make an effort to be still, to see if Laura was still breathing. It took him longer than he would have though possible to calm himself down, between the physical and mental exertion of fighting against Gerald and the beating his body took at Gerald’s hands while he was disconnected from himself. He held his breath and prayed that she would be safe. He saw her chest rise and fall with a shallow breath, and finally exhaled sharply in relief. She was alive! She was still bleeding, and he didn’t know what to do next. He fumbled around for his cell phone and with shaking hands and dialed 9-1-1. It took him two tries to punch in those three digits correctly. When the operator answered, he told her, “My girlfriend’s been shot. She’s barely breathing.”

The 911 operator told him to calm down. She could hear the stress in his voice. “Where are you located?” she asked.

Peter rattled off Laura’s address, surprised that he remembered it. The last time he was aware of her address was the day he came over for the first time to cut their grass, the day all this started for him.

“I’m dispatching an ambulance right now,” the operator said. “Stay on the line with me.”

She went through the litany of questions, and walked Peter through applying pressure to where Laura was bleeding. After only a few minutes, Peter heard cars rolling up to the front of the house, sirens blaring. Around the corner of the house ran three police officers, weapons drawn. One of them stopped, holstered his weapon and talked with Peter, helping him with first aid, while the other two looked around the area, starting in the back yard. Peter could hear more sirens approaching.

One of the officers in the back yard called over to his partner. “He’s running! A guy just jumped over the fence!” Peter could tell the officer was running after him by the way his voice sounded. He didn’t lift his eyes away from Laura’s angelic face. For as much pain as she must be feeling, she looked completely peaceful. Peter heard the policemen clamoring over the back fence, yelling in the other direction. Their words were completely incomprehensible to him.

Paramedics arrived on scene, and Peter was pulled away from Laura while they began to work on her. He watched intently for signs that she was going to make it, but didn’t see any. The policeman that helped him with first aid allowed him to watch as the paramedics loaded her into the waiting ambulance, and then took him to the other ambulance and got him cleaned up as he talked with him about the incident. Another officer walked back from the house with the recovered rifle and magazine. That’s when Dan showed up, dressed in his police uniform.

Dan talked with the officers on the scene and convinced them to let Peter go with him to the hospital that Laura was being taken to. Peter had quite a few injuries to be tended as well, but none were life-threatening. They left before they got word on whether Gerald was caught or not. It wasn’t often that Peter got to ride in Dan’s police car. He wished the circumstances were better.

On the way to the hospital, Dan started in on his brother. “Why the hell were you at that house? Wasn’t the point of going to Uncle Jeff’s so that we wouldn’t be home?”

“Yeah, but...”

“But what? Seriously, that was probably the most impressive display of ‘I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing’ that I’ve ever seen! You could’ve gotten yourself killed back there, and with any luck, Laura will make it through this. She didn’t look good at all. Not at all.” He was shaking his head.

“Can we just get there, please? I’m already worried enough. I don’t need you telling me she’s not going to live through it.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry, but damn it, Peter, you put yourself in that situation.”

“I know. I just hope they catch Gerald.”

They were quiet the rest of the way to the hospital. Dan translated the radio calls pertaining to Laura’s house for Peter. The gist of it was that they were unable to find Gerald. It was a residential area, and he could be anywhere. The officers on the scene found a little nest on the other side of the fence where he had been lying in wait for them. Under the camouflage he constructed, he would have been practically invisible to anyone but the closest observer.

They pulled into the emergency parking lot and walked in the automatic doors, up to the reception desk. The woman at the desk looked up at them. “How can I help you, officer?” she started, but when she saw Peter, she said, “Oh, my. What happened to you?”

Dan said, “We’re looking for a girl that was brought in by ambulance, Laura Sinclair.”

The woman nodded, and said, “They’ve taken her up to surgery already. You can go down this hall and around the corner to the elevators, up to the third floor, where there’s a waiting room and a monitor. Are you sure you don’t want this young man to be looked over while you’re waiting?”

Dan looked at Peter critically, trying to determine if he was acting in any way out of the ordinary. “If anything, he’s more normal now than he’d been recently. I think we’ll be okay for now.”

They went up to the waiting room as instructed and Dan talked with the nurses on that floor. After some verification, they gave him a code that he could use to watch the monitors for updates on her condition.

As they sat in the waiting room, Peter’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out, and the caller ID said, “Laura Sinclair.” Peter was mystified. Absently, he said, “How could Laura be calling me?” before answering it with a very tentative, “Hello?”

Dan reached for the phone, but it was already too late to keep him from answering it. He watched Peter’s face.

A familiar voice on the other end of the phone spoke very quietly. “Who is this?” the voice asked.

“What do you mean, who is this? You know damn well who this is, you son of a bitch.”

Dan was on his radio, but Peter tuned him out. He was listening for what Gerald would say next. “I really don’t know who you are. This is the last number dialed from this phone. I figured you could tell me why there’s a bunch of cops after me.”

“How could you possibly not know why you’re wanted by the police?” said Peter.

Dan reached over and held the wrist of the hand Peter had the cell phone in away from his head. “No matter what, keep him talking,” he said.

Peter was confused, but listened. Into the phone, he said, “Where are you?”

“I’m hiding out, waiting for them to leave. I don’t know what happened, but I feel like someone threw me out the back of a Humvee. Where am I?”

“You’re in Denver,” answered Peter. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Last thing? I was in some sort of firefight in Iraq. The convoy was ambushed and I was away from the vehicle, behind a building when a guy fell right next to me. I was staring into his eyes as he died, and then everything went black.”

“Hold on a second,” said Peter. He held the phone away from his head and covered the mouthpiece. He told Dan what Gerald said.

“Ask him to turn himself in. See if he does it.”

“Are you there?” he asked into the phone.

“Yeah,” said Gerald.

“I think the best thing for you to do would be to surrender to the police. If you don’t remember how you got from Iraq to Denver,” Peter started. Gerald interrupted him, though.

“I can’t surrender. They want to kill me! They’re going to take me to a torture room and start cutting off fingers! You don’t know what these guys are capable of!”

“What are you talking about?” asked Peter, his voice agitated.

“Hang on,” said Gerald. “I think I see my chance coming up. I’ll call you back.”

That was the last Peter ever heard of Gerald. Laura’s surgery lasted for four hours, and she pulled through. Surgeons removed two bullets from her, one from her leg and the other from her lung. Afterwards, she was in the hospital for eight days, where Peter visited her every day.

On the second day, she was awake as he entered the room.

“Hey! You’re awake,” he said as he entered.

“Hi, Peter.” Her voice sounded different somehow. “I’m glad to finally see you in person.” Peter didn’t know what to say as he walked over to her side. Laura continued, “Do you think maybe you can take me back?”

“Take you back, what do you mean?” asked Peter, standing by the bed.

Laura reached out her hand to him. As he looked at it, he noticed that Laura had the same kind of aura that he had seen before, on Gerald and on himself. It was more pronounced in the hand she was reaching to him. He took her hand and felt the surge of energy rush through him, the way it had at the hotel. After a few seconds, he recognized what happened. Leanne returned to him. He didn’t know how that was possible!

When Peter looked into Laura’s eyes now, they looked more like what he was familiar with seeing there. She gazed at him lovingly, still holding his hand. “I am so glad to see you,” she said. “Please tell Leanne thanks for saving my life. She convinced me to stay around for you when you were holding me, after I was shot in the back. She helped me to hold on.” Laura had tears rolling down her cheeks. “And I missed you so much.”