They struggle, bodies colliding, the gun jerking between them. Bri screams my name as he slams her again, harder this time, her back hitting metal with a sickening sound.
She cries out, then knees him hard, right between the legs.
He grunts, stumbling.
That’s my girl.
He snarls and backhands her, sending her staggering. She nearly goes down but catches herself, wild and furious, blood streaking her face.
Something snaps inside me.
I launch myself forward, pain be damned.
My bad leg buckles, but I crash into him anyway, slamming him into the pavement. The gun skitters across the road.
We’re a tangled mess of blood and rage.
He punches me in the ribs, hard. I feel something shift wrong. White-hot agony rips through me, but I welcome it. Use it.
I grab his throat and slam his head into the asphalt.
“You picked the wrong fucking woman,” I snarl.
He laughs, bloody and breathless. “You don’t even know what you’re in the middle of.”
“Oh, I know enough,” I say. “And when I’m done with you, you’re going to tell me everything.”
He knees me in the gut. I go down, gasping. Bri screams for me and he scrambles for the gun.
Bri beats him to it. She grabs it with her good hand, both hands shaking, arms locked straight as she points it at him. She’s crying, shaking so hard I don’t know how she’s standing. But I’m so fucking proud of her and how strong she’s being. “Don’t come any closer!” she screams.
He freezes. Slowly lifts his hands.
“Well,” he says lightly. “This just got interesting.”
“Get on your knees,” she sobs.
He doesn’t. Instead, he lunges. Everything happens at once. Bri screams. The gun goes off. The sound is deafening.
White light explodes behind my eyes as I shove myself between them again, grabbing for her, for him, for anything. Pain slams through me. Then…Nothing. Darkness takes me whole.
TWENTY-EIGHT
How dideverything go so wrong?That’s the only thought I can hold onto as the sound of the gunshot keeps replaying in my head, over and over, louder than the ringing in my ears, louder than my own screaming. I had the gun. I was supposed to be in control.
My hands were shaking, yeah, but I had it pointed at him. I remember that part so clearly. I remember how heavy it felt, how my arms locked, how my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest. I remember Blade behind me, hurt and bleeding, still trying to put himself between me and danger like his body wasn’t already wrecked. He trusted me. And then the man lunged.
Everything after that blurs into chaos and panic. He moved so fast, faster than my brain could catch up, and all I remember is screaming and pulling the trigger because I thought I had to. Because I thought if I didn’t, he would take me. Because I thought I was protecting us.
The gun went off.
But I didn’t hit him.
I hit Blade.
I see it every time I blink. The way his body jerked. The sound he made, like the air was punched out of him. The blood. So much blood.
“No,” I sob, even now, my chest tightening like I can’t get enough air. “No, no, no.”
