Chapter 21: I still have thousands of reasons to hate you

Emery's POV

"Why do you keep trying to leave me?" he pleadingly questions as he pulls away from the kiss. Why do I suddenly feel bad? This is what I wanted, I wanted to run away, to be free from this place. Why do I now feel relieved that he caught me?

"You killed my brother, Raiden," I answered. But I don't know if that's the full truth. Of course I'm running away because he murdered the only person who cared for me after the accident. But I know there's something else I'm running from, I just can't figure out what that something is.

"No I didn't, Emery. I didn't kill your brother because he's still alive," he exclaims happily.

"What are you talking about?" I questioned already knowing the answer. My only question is, how did he figure it out?

"I found the file, I know River's your brother," he replied. That file was probably what fell out of my backpack. I just don't understand why he's so happy on figuring this out.

"Emery, don't you get it? You still have a brother, there's nothing you can hold over me anymore," he explains. Wait, does he think just because he didn't kill my brother, there's no reason to hate him? Sure, maybe he didn't kill my brother but he still killed someone that I have loved my whole life. Jonah is still my brother, just not my blood related brother.

"That doesn't mean you didn't kill the most important person in my life! That doesn't mean you can get away with what you've done to me. I still have thousands of reasons to hate you," I angrily scream back at him. I can't believe he thought I wouldn't hate him. If he hadn't noticed, I still ran away after I found out.

"You're the one that doesn't get it. Jonah was my brother, no matter what that file says!" I try to get away from him as I try to climb down this godforsaken tree. But his hands on my waist keep me rooted to this tree. Get it, rooted to this tree! Now Emery, this isn't a time for a pun joke.

"But we can start over!" he exclaims furiously.

"Start what over? There's nothing to start over, the damage is done. What do you want from me?!" I yelled. I think we're way passed me telling someone about this entire kidnapping. Why can't he just let me go?

"I want you! Why can't you see that?" he demands. I can't even comprehend his words, I don't want to. This can't be happening. But I know exactly the reason as to why I've never noticed this before.

"Maybe because all you do is torture me, Raiden," with that said I successfully jump off the branch onto the other one down below. Soon enough I've climbed down the entire tree, leaving him to ponder in his own thoughts.

Everyone hearing the conversation, they leave me be. I just walk. There's nothing to think about anymore, I feel absolutely nothing. I feel as if it's not my feet that's walking me. I feel like I'm so deep inside my brain that I don't notice any of my surroundings.

That is until I heard a gunshot.

My ears go on high alert as I try to comprehend where it came from. My eyes close as I sigh deeply once I realized the gunshot came from behind me. I dreaded to go back but I know Raiden and his men weren't shooting at each other.

They must be shooting at River and Keith.

All the doubt of turning back washes away from my mind as I run back, hoping that I'll get there in time.

It wasn't that far of a run since I hadn't walked for long. Once I've arrived everything is quiet except for Raiden's screaming. Not to mention his right hand holds a deadly weapon pointing towards the tree I last saw Keith and River in.

"You took her away from me, you coward," he shot two more times at the tree. I hear no noises, no leaves crunching, no sudden movements.

That is until a loud thump was heard, echoing the entire forest.

The darkness blinded me from seeing who it was. All I heard was panting.

Catching one of the guads off guard, I ripped his flashlight that has yet to be turned on away from his hand.

I flicked on the flashlight and before I knew it, I was running towards Raiden. I shoved him hard as I screamed, "How could you." Him being too shocked to notice what I was doing, I took his gun.

And pointed it at his head.

It was the only thing I can think of. I wanted him to feel scared, I wanted him to know he wasn't in control anymore.

But mostly, I just wanted him to pay for what he had just done.

He shot someone I truly care about. Either it was River or Keith, I still care for both of them.

"Emery, what're you doing?" He held both his hands up in the air, next to his head. I hear him breathe deeply as he waits for my answer. He definitely looked shocked, but not scared.

Why is he not scared! Why can't this human being be scared. I want him to feel what I feel everyday. But no, he thought I was too innocent to shoot him. I can tell he thought that by the way he sighed and lowered his hands back to his sides.

"No, stay there!" I screamed as I shakily held the gun while walking over to the body he shot. Raiden took a step forward slowly, thinking I wouldn't see it. I panicked and shot at the ground right next to him.

"I said don't move!" I shouted, hoping he'll take me serious.

He jumped while moving away from the spot I shot at. He put his hands back in the air.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he assured me. Is that what he thought I was worried about? Him hurting me? That was honestly the least of my worries.

"But I will hurt you," I concluded, taking another step towards the body. I dropped my gaze but still held the gun up as I jogged towards the figure laying on the ground.

He lay on his stomach, preventing me from seeing his identity. I lowered my gun slowly as I used all my strength to flip him over onto his back.

I dropped the gun fully as I realized who he was.

"River!" I cried as I saw him still panting for air. His eyes were barely open as he was trying to stay conscious. I felt around his boy to see where he was shot. Too bad I dropped the flashlight while grabbing the gun.

I sobbed harder once my hand touched a warm liquid substance. It was definitely blood. My hand that touched it, lay on his arm where the blood kept streaming out. He was loosing so much blood that I think I'd lose consciousness before him.

Of course, I can barely see but I still felt. I felt the puddle of blood that mixed in with the grass right below his elbow. I did the first thing I learned from Casey.

I ripped his shirt.

Once I ripped a decent strip from his shirt, I tied it a little bit above his wound. Casey told me that doing this would stop his blood flow, preventing his blood from the wound to getting into his heart.

Once I had tied it tightly I ripped another section of his shirt and rolled it up into a ball. I pressed the ball of his shirt onto the wound which made him shout painfully. Blood squirted out continuously which made me almost vomit from my nausea. 

I carefully lifted up his arm to see if the bullet had went through. By seeing the hole in the back of his arm, the bullet had successfully went through.

"Can somebody help carry him to the doctor?!" I hollered, snapping everyone out of their thoughts. Drake, Sawyer, Graham, and Duncan grabbed an arm and a leg and started carrying him towards the broken board of the fence. I was following along until a rough hand pulled me back.

"I didn't shoot him, I only meant to scare him," that's Raiden's pathetic excuse. He is really unbelievable.

"It doesn't matter what you were trying to do! You shot my actual brother this time," I've honestly had enough of him and this stupid secluded mansion. Everyone in this place is crazy.

This place makes you crazy.

I am not pretending like nothings wrong anymore. I will not pretend that I am okay with everything that happened. 

Especially RW.

I don't care who has been nice to me like Renae, Mackenzie, Casey, or Harley. Everyone is on my hate list.

I want revenge, I need it. 

I'll start with the number one person that has been on my hate list for a long time.

I yanked my hand back and walked over to the ground where I dropped the gun. Once I picked it up, I pointed it at him and shot it. I'm not wasting anymore time. 

He unfortunately moved so fast that I could barely see what he was doing. But I knew what he was doing a second later when he tackled me to the ground.  

He landed on top of me while he tried to reach for the gun. I, instead rolled over so I was on top of him, holding the gun above his head. We rolled over a couple of times until he grabbed the gun. I was still holding it, which made us try to pull the other ones hands off.

I used all my strength to point the gun towards his face. I pushed the trigger and the bullet went straight into the sky because of him. He pushed me off roughly, making me let go of the gun completely.

"There was no way I could've shot him, I was shooting at only one branch. A branch the he was nowhere near," he explained himself.

I couldn't listen, I didn't want to listen. All I want to do is go to River, and that's exactly what I did.

I stood up, dusting myself before walking away. Walking away from him which I hope will last for a long time. I picked up the pace and started to run, running towards the broken board.

Once I had got there I pushed the board while running through it quickly, hoping it wouldn't hit me from behind. I ran quickly around the mansion, purposely avoiding from going inside the house. Going in there meant going through a lot of people with a lot of questions.

Once I had got to Casey's little medical center I pushed through the door to see Casey examining River's arm.

"Thank god you're here, I need your help Emery," she exclaimed. I walked over to her as I saw her applying pressure on his wound.

"I need you to check his airway passage," she demanded in a rush. She looked up as she saw my confusion.

"Open his mouth to make sure his tounge isn't in the way of his airway passage. Also make sure there's no blood in his throat," she explained. My disgusted face assured her that I heard what she said. Swallowing my words, I walked towards River as he struggled to breathe. I opened his mouth to see there was nothing in the way from blocking his breathing.

"Umm...His airway passage is clear," I carefully held his hand as his breathing started to slow down.

"I don't think the bullet hit any arteries. Thankfully it missed the bone," Casey mumbled to herself.

"What're you doing now," I questioned her. I know I should leave the doctor alone while she's working on her patient but I desperately needed to know what was going on with River.

"I am carefully removing the bullet," she assured. What does she mean she's removing the bullet? I thought it went straight through.

"But it went straight through," I offered my thoughts.

"A bullet never goes straight through. It has a lot of muscle and bones to get through before going out, if it ever does. I was able to find an exit wound but that doesn't mean it left any shards behind. Unfortunately, I can't get all the shards because it may cause more damage. Since the bullet missed the bone it caused less damage. All I need to do now is clean it and bandage his arm," she explained in a heartbeat.

"So he's not gonna die?" I asked, hoping she'll reassure me.

"Emery, did you know roughly 80% of gunshot patients survive their injuries?" She questioned already knowing the answer.

"Did you just answer my question with another one?" Getting paranoid, I got worried that she still hadn't answered my question.

"I don't know, did I?" Seeing my worried expression, she added, "He's going to be just fine."

I nodded my head while looking down at River. With his eyes slightly opened he tried to say something.

Casey seeing it too, she spoke. "Now that I've assured you, you have to assure him."

I looked at River as he tried to speak but he words were choked back. He's in shock, that much I can tell.

"River, I know that you may feel like you're gonna die but you aren't. You're gonna make it through this. After all this you're gonna show off to everybody you're cool scar. Once you feel better we can both beat up Raiden for shooting you-"

"R...Raiden d..d.didnt sho.o..ot m..m...me," River stuttered horribly that I almost didn't catch his sentence.

"What do you mean River? What are you talking about?" I questioned, taking what he said very seriously since Raiden had said the same thing.

"Mmmm.....K..Keith shot m...me..e," he mumbled.

That's when I realized something was very wrong here.

Where the hell was Keith?

~*~**~*~**~*~

Greetings readers that waited too long for this chapter because I was very lazy for half a month! But don't worry, I did something very non-lazy today, like taking out the trash on the lawn mower.

Now, now I don't know if you guys think this but I think this chapter got very dramatic when River was shot. Maybe it's just me reading too many gang books with a lot of people getting shot, I don't know! What I do know is that I, the author shot River for a good reason. I'm planning something for River and him being shot needed to happen for it to work.

On another topic, I was skimming through my book and realized that this is a GANG book with NO gang activity. I realized that I was so caught up in Raiden, Emery, and RW that really nothing has been going on with the gang.

So from now on I'll be writing more about Raiden, Duncan, Graham, and Mackenzie. I know I still haven't got back to that whole Mackenzie being the only person not on tape thing, but I will soon in Raiden's POV.

Fun fact 1: I read a lot of research about a gunshot wound.
Fun fact 2: I was actually planning on the three to escape successfully.
Fun fact 3: I try to write each chapter with 2.5k words in it.
Fun fact 4: I think I'll be doing these fun facts more often.

Another chapter done! More to go! *cries silently*

💕Izzy💕