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Before: Gun Shot


Nick

I woke up to the sound of Nacho scratching the bedroom door. I opened my eyes and there was Ashley. My heart about stopped. It had felt too perfect, too much like a dream, and I think some part of me had convinced myself that it had been. I stared at her, breath caught in my lungs, heart shuddering. Nacho continued scratching. I inched backward slowly, disentangling my legs from around her legs, and I crawled off the bed carefully and snatched my boxers off the floor as I snuck out the door.

In the hallway, I pulled my underwear on as I followed Nacho toward the living room. He bounced happily along like he was a rubber ball until we got to the slider door and I let him out. I heard him scramble down the steps.

I turned back into the house and opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of juice, which I unscrewed the cap on and drank, staring at the red digital numbers on the microwave informing me it was a little after midnight.

I stuck my head out the door and looked around. "Nacho," I called quietly. I hoped he'd just come back in and make this easy on me. I didn't really feel like parading myself out on the beach front with my boxers in the moonlight and I didn't want to wake Ashley up, either. "Naaacho..." I hissed.

I stepped out onto the patio. "Nacho." My voice was more firm.

To my left, in the taller grasses that line the slope behind my house, the grass that lined the steps down to the beach, I heard something moving, coming closer.

"Nacho," I snapped.

The lil fucker was like right there and not coming.

Then I heard him barking.

And he was not right there. But something else was.

I froze, torn between two instinctive urges. One, go get Nacho before whatever it was got him, and two, run like fuck back into the house.

Before I could decide which to do, I heard Nacho at the foot of the stairs, growling and barking loudly.

There was a gun shot that echoed across the backyard.

Nacho stopped barking.

My heart stopped and I bolted down the stairs. There was footfalls right in front of me, though it was too dark to see anything other than a vague shape moving ahead of me.

Following it was probably not the best of the two instincts to follow, given what I'd just heard, but I couldn't stop myself. "NACHO!" I yelled, and I tripped and fell about halfway down, eating sand. I saw the footsteps in the sand leading off around the far side of the house and I saw Nacho. He was bleeding but he was alive, so I scrambled to my feet and I picked him up and ran back up the stairs.

Ashley was in the kitchen, eyes wide, only my t-shirt on. "What the hell was that?" she gasped.

"Someone fucking shot Nacho," I gasped, putting him down on the table. Nacho was bleeding. He looked panicked. I held him down, trying to look at him, to see how bad the wound was, to figure out what the hell I could do to fix him. "Hey, lay still, lil buddy," I begged him as he struggled, trying to get up. "We gotta get dressed," I said, spinning on my heels, "We gotta call the cops. We gotta take him to the vet. There's a 24-hour clinic across town." I scooped him up, not wanting to leave him alone on the table, "We gotta call the cops. We gotta take him to the vet," I repeated, panicking. Ashley followed me to the bedroom and I put Nacho down on the bed. He wasn't struggling as hard and I wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but my hands shook as I pulled my pants on over my boxers and grabbed a new shirt out of the closet as Ashley struggled with her sweatpants.

"Can you hold him in the car?" I asked, "So I can drive."

Ashley was standing by the bed. She looked over at me. "Nick."

"We gotta get him to a vet, he'll be okay."

"Nick."

I was pulling blankets out of my closet. I knocked over a bunch of shit, and it tumbled down all around me, making a big mess on the floor. I took the blanket over to the bed.

My throat constricted.

I closed my eyes.

I shook my head.

"No."

"Nick," Ashley's voice was gentle.

"NO!" I yelled. "WAKE HIM UP!"

"Nick, I can't."

"PLEASE!"

"Nick... I'm sorry..." Ashley was crying now.

I threw the blanket on the floor and left the room.

I couldn't quite wrap my mind around what had just happened. I walked quickly back out to the living room, then back to the bedroom door, turned, and started pacing the hallway. Who the fuck would ---

I turned back into the bedroom. Ashley was sitting on the bed, crying. She'd wrapped him in the blanket I'd thrown on the floor. He was just this bundle of blanket now.

"Does Chris own a gun?" I asked.

Ashley looked up, the answer written all over her face.




Ashley

"We can't stay here," Nick said.

"Where the hell are we going to go?" I wailed.

Nick started grabbing things out of the closet, tossing them into a duffle bag. "I dunno we'll go to AJ's for tonight, I dunno where after that. We'll figure it out. We can't stay here though." He threw a bunch of stuff into the bag. "We need to call the cops."

I could hardly breathe, my sobs were deep in my body, they seemed to be tearing open my internal organs. "But Nick --"

"There's no way in hell I'm resting while I know he's out there with a gun," Nick said, his hands and voice were shaking.

"Nick, this is all my fault..." I cried.

"It's not your fault, it's that fucking psychopath," Nick said. "I can't believe he would ---" his eyes landed on the bundle that was his dog on the bed. He closed his eyes. His voice shook. "He would've shot me if it wasn't for Nacho barking."

I felt sick at the thought of it.

"Nacho saved my life," Nick said thickly.

"I'm scared to go outside Nick," I whimpered. "I don't think we should go. I think we should stay here. We should call the cops and stay right here."

"The car's in the garage. We don't have to go outside. We'll call the cops from the road."

"The garage is easy enough to break into, I broke into your garage," I said.

"I can't. I can't just -- we can't just stay here," Nick said, "What if he gets in? There's no telling what he'd do --"

"Nick!" I wailed, "Stop! You're scaring me worse."

He paced. Back and forth and back and forth. "Who the fuck sold that crackhead imbacile a gun anyways," he muttered, "Who the fuck..."

"Nick, please."

"Ashley... I have to protect you." Nick came over to me, put his hands on my shoulders, stared into my eyes. "What if it was you that was letting Nacho out tonight? What if I hadn't let Nacho out at all? What if he got into the house? Ashley... he's crazy, I wouldn't put nothin' past him... And... if anything ever happened to you...if I ever lost you....I would die. I would seriously... I would cease to live. There'd be no point."

I felt my throat close up.

"Now please," he said, "Let's get your things, and let's go. Because I can't just sit here and wait and see what happens. I need to get you out of here, I need to get you safe."

I nodded because I didn't know what else to do.