“You passed out.”Gavin was leaning over him, his face anxious as he applied pressure to the dressing he’d wound around Tristan’s upper arm.“Bleeding’s slowed, but you need fluids stat.”
“Feel sick.”His heart was racing way too fast.It was hard to catch his breath.
“Be surprised if you didn’t.”
“Breathe slow,” Decker said, his huge frame filling the open doorframe.
“Where’s Cassie?”he managed.
“Here.”She leaned forward, reached down to grasp his right hand.“Right here.”
“You’re c-cold.”
“I’m okay.”She squeezed his hand tight.“The fire crew just got here.Ambulance is a few minutes away.”
“Don’t w-want ambulance.”
“Too bad.”Gavin shifted his grip.Tristan hauled in a sharp breath, a strangled cry wrenching free.
He must have passed out again, because when he regained awareness Decker and Tristan were putting him on a gurney.The medics checked his vitals and started an IV.He still felt that bastard going into a vein on his good arm.
They changed the dressing on his left arm and repositioned it across his body.He let out a throttled sound, swallowed back the scream clawing up his throat.He was shaking again, his skin slick with a cold sweat.
“Here comes some pain meds,” one of them said.A moment later, Tristan felt like he was floating.The pain receded somewhere into the background, allowing him to breathe again.
He thought he must be dreaming when Cassie climbed into the back and perched beside him.
She leaned over him.Took his face in her hands.“Hey.”Her thumbs moved gently across his cheekbones.Her pretty silver eyes were drenched with tears.“You hanging in there?”
“Yeah.”The ambulance was moving, siren on.
“You’re gonna be okay,” Cassie told him.“They got the bleeding stopped, and they’re giving you fluids to boost your blood volume.”
“Hospital knows you’re on the way,” the medic said.“Surgical team is prepping an O.R.for you.”
Something hard was digging into the back of his thigh.He tried to shift his leg.
Cassie swept a hand under it.Pulled her coat out from under him and quickly took something from the pocket.A phone.
“I took his phone,” she said.And it took him a moment for his drugged brain to fill in the gaps.
Quinn.
Cassie turned it on, the light from the screen illuminating her face.
“What you looking at?”he mumbled.
“His call log.”She scrolled through it, then sucked in a breath, her face paling.
His insides tightened in foreboding.“What?”
She looked at him, a turbulent mixture of pain and disbelief on her face before her eyes hardened like hammered steel.“I have to call Ivy.”
