A Series of Unfortunate Events

Disclaimer: These are not my characters they are fully James Duffs. I just love them so much and love to play with them.

Chapter 15

Gary's face was a mask of surprise and fury. His eyes were all over the place looking for an escape. His hand that held the gun was shaking as it started to lower but then he started to raise it again and she shot him in the arm that was holding the gun. "I said drop your weapon, do it now!" He dropped the gun but not before he got off a shot as well. She shot him again and this time he dropped face forward, not dead but unconscious.

Holding a screaming Bella, she moved forward and kicked his gun as far as she could. As the room filled with people, Sharon dropped to her knees still holding the baby who was screaming hoarsely. Sharon's hands shook as she undressed the infant seeing blood all over her little head and neck. There seemed to be a lot of blood on the baby and her clothes. She prayed silently as she undressed Bella searching for a bullet hole. She finally breathed when she saw that the blood on the baby seemed to be coming from another source, not from the baby. It was then that she realized she herself had been hit. It was a graze along the hairline. It would need stitches, and head wounds were notorious for bleeding profusely.

"Sharon! Oh my God, Sharon! Are you okay? Is the baby okay?" Andy quickly knelt beside her and turned her face so he could see where she was hurt. Seeing the blood oozing and dripping from a furrow just underneath her hairline, he took a clean handkerchief from his pocket and held it to her forehead. "You got him, Sharon! Wow, you were amazing! You played him like a fiddle." At that moment Sharon was incapable of coherent speech. She just rocked the baby trying to calm her and herself. "Stay still, Sharon, Sweetheart," Andy said soothingly as he continued putting pressure on the wound.

Hearing a groan, he turned and looked at Gary. He saw the steady shallow breaths and realized he was not dead as he had first thought. He looked up and saw Rusty coming through the door. "Rusty, come here, please. Hold this." He indicated the handkerchief on Sharon's forehead, then he got up, found his handcuffs in his leather jacket and made quick work of handcuffing Gary's hands together. He then looked for Sharon's cuffs in her purse and cuffed his legs together before going back to Sharon. He took the baby from her. "Rusty, I'll take over with that, you take your sister and clean her up, please. She's cold and she's traumatized. So, after you clean her up, try to get her to take a bottle. Swaddle her to keep her warm and rock her. Give her a lot of cuddle time. I'd do it but I've got my hands full right now."

Rusty nodded and took the baby from Andy. "Is Mom going to be okay? She seems kind of out of it."

"Yeah, she does, but I think eventually she'll be okay. At least I think so, Rusty. Go take care of the baby." Andy watched the young man disappear into the other part of the suite, then he looked up at the other people who were congregating into the room. "Can someone call 911?"

Grace kneeled down and handed Andy a clean towel to replace the bloody handkerchief. "Already done, as soon as we heard the shots fired. I'm sorry Andy, I feel like this was my fault. I should have listened to Bonnie and not discounted what she said."

"This is not your fault Grace. Bonnie told me she saw a guy in khakis come onto the property. To be truthful, I didn't know how reliable she was, and at first, I almost discounted what she said as well. Then she told me she saw him go into our suite. As she said that my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Sharon, and I could hear Sharon's voice and the voice of Gary Lewis, the man who killed Rusty and Bella's biological mom on my phone. So, I knew she was not imagining things. Of course, Bonnie said he was wearing khakis and as you can see he's wearing camouflage. I can understand that you may have thought she was talking about Richard." As he spoke he noticed Sharon getting paler by the minute. "Sharon, Sweetheart, are you okay?"

She had started breathing heavily. "I need my rescue inhaler... p...p...please." She was shaking because the adrenalin rush was wearing off and exhaustion was taking over. Not to mention the trauma of what had happened had triggered another asthma attack. The asthma was new and brought on by a combination of the bomb blasts and the pneumonia of a couple of weeks ago. Andy reached for the diaper bag. He rooted around and found her yellow rescue inhaler and handed it to her. She used it and then tried to calm herself, but she couldn't seem to stop shaking. "Andy, is he dead?" She swallowed and her voice was husky.

He looked over toward Gary's prone body. "No, he's out for the count though."

"I shot him twice. Once in his right arm, and I think once in his shoulder or was it in his chest? Has anybody done anything to stop the bleeding?" Sharon asked frantically.

"He doesn't appear to need it. I don't really see much blood," Andy said dispassionately.

"Andy, please! Don't let him die because in spite of all the bad he's done. I couldn't bear it if I were to have killed another human being, s… s… so soon after Dwight, please!" Her voice broke.

Andy really did not want anything to do with the scumbag. Quite frankly, he wasn't sure he could hold back from throttling him for shooting at Sharon while she had his own daughter in her arms. Who does that? But the sound of her voice breaking and the haunted look in Sharon's eyes made him get up and check on Gary.

A few seconds later, two sets of paramedics and the police showed up. The paramedics loaded Gary onto the gurney and took him out to the ambulance. Two seasoned policemen went with him. The paramedics that were taking care of Sharon started to try to do the same with her after they cleaned and bandaged her wound, but she was resistant. "I don't need to go to the hospital for a few stitches! Please, Andy... don't let them take me!" She attached herself to him and buried her face in his chest. When the paramedics came near her she tried to move away from them. She suddenly burst into tears. "Please, Andy don't let them take me I don't want to go!"

It was as if she was hearing someone else crying and carrying on. She couldn't believe she was falling apart like this. After all hadn't she just spent the last twenty minutes conversing with a cold-blooded killer with a gun pointed at her and the baby she was holding? Go figure! She supposed after everything that had happened in the recent past, shooting Dwight in the courtroom, being in the middle of not one but two bomb blasts. Being near death in the hospital with double pneumonia, and just now staring down a murderer, she was experiencing a form of PTSD.

Andy could see she was at her breaking point and held her for a moment. "It's okay, Sweetheart," he said running his hands up and down her back. Then he gently started to lift her onto the gurney as he said, "Sharon, you do need to go to the hospital though and you are going. It's the rules, and you wrote those rules, but don't worry, I'm going with you and I'll be with you the whole time," Andy said gently as he helped her lay down.

Once she was laying down she started to relax in spite of herself. She wanted to resist so much, but she was suddenly so tired she couldn't find the energy. She did, however, turn her head and quietly ask the EMT to sit her up more, because laying flat made it difficult to breathe. The paramedic did sit her up more and then seeing her breathing heavily put an oxygen cannula in her nose and looped it around her ears. He noticed she was shaking uncontrollably and put a blanket on her, but that did nothing to reduce the trembling. Andy held her hand and tried to calm her but nothing was working. The paramedic closest to Andy called his supervisor quietly about giving her a sedative. The answer was yes but ask about allergies to medications. Andy's answer to the question was "no. No known allergies." He looked at Andy and showed him an IV port and let it be known that he was going to stick her and that he needed to distract her. Andy held the hand closest to him and kept her face pointed toward him when the paramedic put the port in her hand and hooked her up to the IV. In spite of being upset about herself being taken to the hospital the mother in her immediately went to the baby. "I want Bella to be seen too," she said with a shaky, gravelly voice. "She's still very congested, and she's been through a lot. Where is she?" She had been so out of it as Rusty had called it she'd been completely unaware of who had the baby.

Andy patted her other hand. "She's with Rusty, Sweetheart. She doesn't appear to be hurt, but you're right, between the ear infections the congestion, the tummy problems and being in the middle of a gunfight, she should be seen." Andy agreed with her and called Rusty over. He had cleaned Bella up and was feeding the baby a bottle or trying to, she was not cooperating. Andy lifted the baby into his own arms and took the bottle and the diaper bag. Then he followed Sharon and the paramedics out to the ambulance. Over his shoulder, he said, "we'll take the baby with us. Sharon wants her to be seen. Grab the car seat for me and meet me at the ambulance please."

Rusty did what he was told. He was feeling bad that once again parts of his past were showing up and causing problems for Sharon and Andy and now his sister. When he handed the car seat to Andy, the older man saw the look on his face and knew what he was thinking. "Rusty, what happened today wasn't your fault. It happened as a result of the wrong choices Gary made. It would upset your mom if she thought you were feeling guilty about it, so don't. When you get to the hospital tell them you are our son. They should let you back. Try to grab a can of the goat milk formula that Sharon bought last night. I think it's in the refrigerator. Bring it with you and some extra bottles, diapers and a few more onesies. Ask Grace the address to the hospital and put it in the GPS on your phone. Also, if you could put together a little bag with a change of clothes for your mom, that would be helpful. You know, get Grace to do it, Lily left already, but Grace would probably welcome the chance to help. It'll save you having to rifle through your mom's clothes and you'll have enough to do just getting the baby's stuff together."

Rusty nodded. He knew Andy was concerned and a little shaken up over what had just happened because of the way he rambled off a list of things he wanted done. It was the lieutenant's way to have some control. "Do you think they will keep her?" He asked very concernedly. "She won't like that."

Andy thought a moment, "I'm not sure whether they'll keep her, but if your mother has anything to say about it they won't. They'll probably just stitch her up and maybe put her on the nebulizer, for a while, but her clothes that she's wearing are all bloody, so that's why I wanted a change of clothes for her." He patted Rusty on the shoulder as he said, "it will all be ok. Bye, see you there." With that, Andy pulled himself up into the ambulance. He had given Sharon the baby to hold just before they lifted her inside. Once he got in the ambulance he took the baby from her. He could see she was exhausted, and about to close her eyes. He took her hand with his free one. She squeezed it and he squeezed back.

Sharon was calmer now that she had been given a light sedative. Now that her panic attack was over, she had resigned herself to being transported to the hospital in the ambulance. She hated it, but this time she didn't have other victims that needed it more as an excuse. She wasn't mad at Andy for insisting, she knew he was just trying to be cautious, especially after the last time she skipped the ambulance ride.

"Sleep my love, you've earned it," he said and he kissed her cheek. Andy knew what Sharon really needed right now was rest. He was just relieved he didn't lose her once again.

She nodded and hummed closing her eyes, but then even as her eyes were closing she asked, "Has FID been called?"

"Yes, they'll meet us at the hospital and talk to you after you've been seen. It will take that long for them to get here. I asked for Sergeant Elliot and the other guy who interviewed you the last time. What's his name, Camacho?" Sharon nodded again in agreement. "I asked Captain Weatherly about their FID and he said they share with Palm Springs and three other cities. So, I figured we were safer with our guys."

"Hmmm, our guys? I'm sure Sargent Elliot and Sargent Camacho would be gratified to hear you call them our guys," Sharon said deadpanned. Within a few seconds, her hand relaxed in Andy's. He hoped she get a chance to sleep before reaching the hospital.

TBC...

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