He turned and looked at me, his eyes as fierce as ever, but an amused smile crossed his face. “Glad to see you’re improving.” He walked over to me and set a bag in my lap. “The donut.”
I smiled. “You brought it? What happened to ‘I’m a mobster, not an errand boy?’”
“I just happened to be passing by,” he replied. “And I wanted a donut.”
Of the conversations Milli and I had while Gio was gone was the fact that a particular donut shop near my apartment had the best donuts on the planet. I told him about my favorite one and asked if he’d be willing to get one for me, but I received a lot of sass for the request. Buried somewhere inside of Milli was a pretty incredible guy. It was a shame he showed it in such small, chaotic spurts.
“Lor,” I said, hoping to calm her. “This is Zariq.” Then I held up the bag. “Want some of my donut?”
She shook her head, shivering. “No. I don’t.”
“She doesn’t have your grit,” Milli said boldly.
“She does, she’s just nervous,” I said. “Overstimulated.”
“Uh,” Tamryn cut in. “Are we going to talk about the crashes and the alarm that’s still going off?”
He turned and looked back at her. “There are some people trying to get into the hospital that they don’t want in the hospital. Gio’s assisting. He sent me in, so it’s not too bad. I was told to make sure everyone knew that there’s nothing to be afraid--”
Once again, our conversation was cut off by a series of loud bangs and the unmistakable sound of gunfire. Lorie started to scream as both Tamryn and Milli prepared their arms now. “Excuse me,” Milli said, then he slipped back out of the room.
“Are we in danger?” Lorie whimpered.
Tamryn turned around and looked at her. “Not with me here, sweetheart.”
Almost as if it was designed to prove that fact, the door flew open and someone came storming into the room. I didn’t recognize them at all, but the second their eyes landed on me, they started to charge right at me. Even I got spooked that time, reeling backwards in my bed despite knowing I didn’t really have anywhere I could go. All I had to arm myself with was the donut Milli brought me, which I did prepare to throw if I had to, but Tamryn interceded.
Rushing forward, she kicked a foot out and struck the guy right behind the knee. He crumpled down to one leg and tried to twist and point his weapon back, but Tamryn shoved her hand out and palmed the guy’s gun right out of his hand, at which point she then brought her other hand down over his his head, slamming the back of her gun hard against his face and knocking him out cold. She picked up the guy’s gun and handed it to me, but I was holding it like it was a bomb set to blow. I’d only held a gun one other time before, and it was when I hung out of Gio’s window and shot aimlessly into the night, getting lucky and hitting Vincent. I didn’t actually know what to do with one.
Not like Tamryn seemed to.
The alarm that had been screaming continuously stopped, bringing on a deafening silence. There were only the sounds of Lorie’s light cries in the corner and I looked over to see that she was completely curled into a ball with her hands clasped on either side of her head.
Just as calm was settling over the room, the door opened again, both Tamryn and I pointed our guns in that direction, but Gio just held up his hands. “It’s me!” He looked over at the body on the ground and then back at Tamryn. “Is he…?”
She shook her head. “Just knocked out.”
Gio looked to me then, flying to my side and pulling the gun from my hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” My eyes locked with Tamryn and I snickered. “Your mom is no joke.”
He nodded and smiled. “Yeah. I knew you’d be in safe hands here.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“We’re still trying to figure that out, but from what we can tell, someone was pretty desperately trying to get to you.”
“My brothers?” I asked, then nodded to the gun in Gio’s hand. “That man brought that in here. I don’t think he was coming to ask me to prom.”
“I assumed the original attack was meant for me and caught you by accident, but this makes me think that maybe wasn’t the case,” Gio said.
“That’s what it seems like,” I responded, “but why would anyone try and killme?”
“I don’t know.” Gio lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. “But I intend to find out.”
36
GIO
