So much blood.
She didn't want it to be him. But as the car rounded the corner, the body on the ground was without a doubt the one person she had wished it wasn't. As she left the car, her footsteps didn't even register in her head. She wasn't even sure if he was still breathing.
"Michael."
She didn't know where to start; she wasn't even exactly sure what to do. Her head fell to his chest quickly; she could hear the distinct but weak beat and the slow drag of oxygen leaving his lips.
"He's breathing."
Reassurance. She glanced over at Josh.
"Faint pulse."
Her hands fell to his wound, the pole that was so cruelly wedged into his skin making her stomach flip. Blood seeped through the bandage she had laid around the flesh, her fingers already coated in Michael's blood.
"We can't move him with that sticking out like that."
She could still feel the flow of his blood, the liquid continuing to weep from the wound, her hands staining crimson.
Too much blood.
She could barely hear the conversation between Josh and Lawson. She was far too focused on her Michael and how she could do nothing but try and limit the bleeding. She focused on each breath that he took, each one sounding weaker than the last.
"Leon, Michael doesn't have thirty minutes."
Stella winced, her hands putting more pressure on his wound. He would pull through; she would make him pull through. Stella would make sure Michael had thirty minutes because she didn't know what she would do with herself if he didn't.
"Hey."
Stella looked up. Blonde hair leant over Michael, whispering words of comfort. Words that should have belonged to Stella.
"Audrey, you need to get out of my face."
She wished it had come out less harsh than it did, but she lost her control, her words hung in the air harshly. She held in something that would have come out as a sob, her hands clenching around Michael's wound, watching as Audrey slowly drifted off.
She didn't let him go, her hands remained on him as bolt cutters took off the pole that had been implanted in his skin. She didn't stop touching him as the stretcher was slipped under his body.
Stella was going to make Michael survive.