Okay...so I haven't updated in like 3 months. I want to say that I'm really sorry for keeping all of you waiting for so long when you have all been such faithful readers comment-ers, and followers. I hope that you didn't give up on me - you'll be happy to know that I have more chapters in the works!
I will be focusing on this story for next few months and once I have written a lot more for this story, I will keep writing for A Place To Crash (I have three more chapters that I will be uploading for that story over the next couple of weeks and then there will be another long break on that one until I've written on this one for a while). Please feel free to leave any comments you may have.
Chapter 12
***Four days later***
Jay walked Peter to his bus stop a couple of blocks away from the house on a warm fall morning. The rising sun cast a long shadow over all the trees lining the sidewalk, forming a show form of a fence. Peter was running a few strides ahead of his father since they were close to his bus stop and he'd just spotted one of his friends. Jay smiled and greeted the other parents waiting, but after a couple of minutes, Peter said, "Daddy?"
"Yeah?" Jay asked, leaning down so he was at his son's eye level.
"Where's Cam?" Peter asked.
Jay sighed before saying, "His dad's sick, Peter, so he won't be in school for a while."
"You're never gonna get sick, right daddy?"
"Of course not," Jay replied, trying to reassure Peter.
"And you're never gonna leave me?"
"What's bringing this on, buddy?" Jay asked, concerned.
"Some of the teachers yesterday said that one of their daddies was gone," Peter said, "Promise me that you'll never leave, daddy?"
Jay held out his pinkie and said, "Pinkie promise, Peter. I promise." Peter smiled and hugged Jay and when his bus pulled up, he hopped on the bus and waved out the window as the bus drove away, Jay silently praying that his job would allow him to hold that promise.
***Six hours later***
The entire Intelligence unit, plus Burgess and Roman, stood outside of an old building on the outskirts of town while Voight gave instructions for the breach. Erin and Jay's job was to breach the back entrance and clear the back hallway while the rest of the team breached the front. They nodded to each other as they grabbed their weapons and headed around the back. As soon as Voight gave the order to breach the back, Jay thrust the door open and covered Lindsay as she checked the various offices down the hallway. She and Jay yelled "Clear!" back and forth as they cleared various rooms, and as Erin ducked into the last office on the left side and reached for her radio, she heard two gunshots from another office. After she heard someone scurry out the back door, she ran across the hallway and found Jay bleeding out on the floor.
Erin screamed as she leaned over Jay and removed his bulletproof vest. One of the bullets had hit his vest, but the other had missed and gone in above his collarbone. "No, no, no!" Erin screamed. As she put pressure on his wounds and begged Jay to stay conscious, all while trying to stop herself from crying, she yelled into her radio.
"Intelligence to Main, we have an officer down and need an ambo at 61 South Holbrook NOW! Suspect exited the back of the building and is most likely fleeing on foot. All area patrols be advised." She paused to catch her breath before yelling, "Help! Jay's been shot!"
"God, that hurts," Jay moaned.
"Jay, stay with me, stay with me please!" Erin pleaded, tears falling down her face.
"I love you…and Peter…so…so…much," Jay said, his breathing slowing, "I'm…sorry…Erin."
"NO! Jay, you stay with me, don't do this to me! Don't do this to Peter!" Erin screamed as she heard footsteps coming around the corner. Jay passed out as Antonio rounded the corner and stopped in the doorway.
"Ambo's on its way," he said quickly, his heart breaking at sight of Erin crying over Jay, who was unconscious in a pool of his own blood. He took off his brown scarf and gave it to Erin to press the wound just above Jay's collar bone. The second wound had barely broken the skin, but Jay was losing a lot of blood.
"He still has a pulse, and he's breathing," Erin said monotonously, sniffing multiple times in an attempt to stop crying. "What am I going to tell Peter?" Erin said, sobbing more.
"I'll get him in a little bit and take him to 51, okay?" Antonio said. Erin nodded in acceptance, and Antonio added, "Don't worry, Erin. He's still alive." Luckily, Erin's tears seemed to slow as two paramedics came rushing into the room after getting directions from Ruzek and Atwater and loaded Jay into the ambo. Erin rode alone as the rest of the Intelligence unit wrapped up the bust.
Thirty seconds away from Lakeshore, Jay's heart rate started slowing. "He's crashing!" the paramedic yelled, Erin unable to stop herself from crying more. She was holding Jay's hand and silently begged him to stay alive. They shocked him with the AED as they pulled up outside the hospital. They had gotten his heart rate up again, and the doctors and Erin wheeled the gurney into the ER and down the hallway to the operating theater. At the OR doors, one of the doctors stopped Erin, leaving her in the waiting room unable to do anything else to help Jay.
Alone, she slumped down onto the floor next the doors as tears continued to stream down her face. She was about to put her head in her hands when she saw that both of her hands were covered in blood…Jay's blood. She put her arms around her legs and cried with her head against her thighs, fearing the worst.
