“No, I'm the one who’s fine.You'rehurt, Cavin,” she says, and then she's crying freely now.
“You're a liar.”I see the cuts on her feet, the shake in her hands. “You're?—”
“Cavin, stop,” she says, her voice sharp and commanding. “You need to settle. The medic's here. I promise, I'm fine. Somebody tell him I'm fuckin' fine.”
“She's fine, lad,” Seamus says, his firm hand on my shoulder. “Lie down. You want to be here to see tomorrow, don't you?”
I blink at him. There are two Seamuses floating in front of me.
Then I remember. The fight. The kid from Cork. Mackey.
Something wrong. Somebody behind me.
Fuck. Who was it?
I try to sit up, but hands push me back down. Probably Seamus, the big bastard.
“Get the fuck off?—”
“Easy, brother. You're grand. Just stay down.”
“Did you get him?” I growl. “The big fucker with the—” Another wave of pain crashes through my skull, and I lose the words… lose everything for a second. The world swims in front of me.
Erin starts crying harder.
“Stop it,” she says firmly. She pushes Seamus off and takes my hand, gripping it tight. She lets me squeeze. “Letmehandle him. I'm the only one he listens to.” She bends her face to mine again. “Cavin. Lie down. This is what happened. You fought the Cork lad, Mackey. Do you remember that?”
I nod, just barely.
“During the fight, somebody ambushed you with a pipe.Cracked you over the skull.” She swallows hard. “Tried to get you a second time, but I stopped him.”
“That she did with Ciarán’s gun.”
“You’ve got to teach me how to fuckin' shoot when you're better,” she says under her breath. “I would have shot him if I could have, but I wasn’t sure I wouldn't hurt somebody accidentally in the crowd.”
I let out a breath. “Right. We'll talk about that later, I promise.”
“Right. But we got the pipe. Declan, you still have it?” she says over her shoulder.
“Aye,” he says, brandishing it.
Erin winces when she sees blood dripping down the side. “Take it. Scan it for prints. Find out who the fuck he is.”
And then Seamus is barking out orders to Declan and Lorcan. “We have to go see if there's any footage in the club.”
“You know there's no fuckin' footage in the ring,” they say.
But Erin ushers them out.
And then I blink and see the doc leaning over me. Where’s Erin?
“Concussion,” he's saying. “Could be worse. Of all things, the little knit cap took some of the impact.”
The cap? But there it is—Erin's holding it.
“A little knit cap like that. Who'd have known?”
“Maybe I knew,” she says with a wink. But of course she didn’t. She's just taking the mickey out of me, trying to lighten the mood.
