A throbbing pain in the back of my skull was the third.
I let out a low groan.
“D-Daddy?”
The tight pressure on my shoulder grew heavier until I groaned again.
I lifted a hand to swat at what I assumed was Rose squeezing the hell out of me.
Why? She only did this when she was feeling hyperanxious about something. She hadn’t crushed me like this in years—not since her mother kept visiting her school. What had happened?
“D-Daddy!” Rose shouted in my ear, or at least that’s what it sounded like she was doing. I turned my head away from her to minimize her attempts to deafen me. “You n-need t-to wake up,D-Daddy! I d-don’t know w-what to d-do! There’s so m-much…. M-Marshall, he’s—”
Marshall? What?
I forced my eyes open, squinting against the pale overhead lighting and wincing when the squinting didn’t help the throbbing headache that had quickly taken up residence in my head.
“What?” I frowned at how gruff my voice sounded, how loud it was. It was supposed to be a murmur, not a shout. I rubbed at my forehead, trying to clear my thoughts.
“M-Marshall….” Rose trailed off.
I turned my head back to try to focus on her and her shouty voice. It took a moment for her face to come into focus, but when it finally did, I could see her bloodshot eyes and the evidence of tears on her cheeks.
“Rosey…,” I murmured, raising my hand to lay against her cheek. “What’s wrong, sweetheart…?”
She leaned into my palm, holding it to her face before she looked sadly to my left. “It’s M-Marshall. He… he w-won’t w-wake up….”
“What?” I blinked, then blinked again.Why wouldn’t he wake up? What had happened?
“I s-stopped the b-bleeding, b-but—”
“What?”My eyes widened enough to shoot a sharp pain through my temple.Marshall had been bleeding? Why?
“D-Daddy…,” Rose said quietly.
Finally. Her voice wasfinallyat an acceptable level.
I watched her look at me, then back at something to my left.
Frowning, I turned my head and saw Marshall lying next to me, his eyes closed and looking so incredibly pale and waxy.
“Marshall?” My eyes widened, triggering that sharp pain again, but this time I ignored it and rolled onto my side enoughthat I could drag myself the foot and a half that separated us. Then I reached my fingertips out to trace his jawline. “Baby…?”
Nothing.
There was no response at all from him.
No difference in his breathing.
No reaction to my voice or my touch.
Nothing.
My heart began to race, and with that increase in heart rate, so came the memories.
The vision of watching Marshall racing with wide-eyed terror toward me, Lucy cradled in his sweater, pressed against his stomach.
The sound of the glass windows and sliding doors rattling, then exploding inward.
