“Need help,” I groaned when he answered. “At my mother’s.” That was all I could manage to say before I gave in and closed my eyes.
* * *
“Game,”someone said in the distance. “Open your eyes, man. Can you hear me?”
I opened my eyes to find Splint hovering over me.
“There you are,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice.
“What happened?” I asked groggily.
Splint frowned. “You don’t remember?”
I tried to think, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the pain in my head. “My head hurts,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, I bet it does,” he said.
“Tell me what happened.”
“From what I can tell, you’ve been shot, and you have a head injury,” he explained. “I was hoping you could fill in the details.”
At his words, it all came back in a flash. “Ben,” I started and swallowed. My throat was unusually dry, making it hard to speak. “Ben was here. He had a gun. He started shooting, and I think he shot Dani. He got me, and I returned fire. Pretty sure I hit him.”
Splint nodded. “Yeah, you did. Do you know what happened to your head?”
“Fuck. This is embarrassing,” I grumbled. “I tripped over something and smacked the side of my head on the coffee table.”
I grimaced when the stretcher I was on popped up and raised me into the air. “Let’s get you to the hospital and see how much damage you did,” Splint said and started rolling me toward the door.
“What’s the status of the others?” I asked, but Splint hesitated to answer. “I’m assuming they’re dead, but either way, just tell me.”
“Ben’s dead. Dani was alive when the ambulance left with her, but she was in bad shape. I’m not sure about your mother’s injuries,” he told me as he loaded me into the back of the ambulance.
“My mother was there?”
“Yeah, we found her on the floor right behind you.”
I scoffed. “I bet she’s what I tripped over.”
Splint nodded. “From what I saw, you’re probably right.”
I groaned when the ambulance hit a bump and jostled me. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“I can give you something for that, but the nausea is probably because of your head injury, so I doubt the medicine will help.”
“Give it to me, man. I can’t puke right now. My head already feels like it’s going to explode,” I said urgently.
“Take some slow, deep breaths,” Splint encouraged. “We’re almost there.” I felt a tingling sensation in my hand and looked down to see him administering something into an IV that I didn’t realize I had.
“When did that get there?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Right after we found you knocked out on the floor.”
His words reminded me of my desperate call to Copper before I lost consciousness. “Was the club there?”
“Yeah, a few of the brothers arrived about the same time we did.” He pointed out the back window. “And they’re right behind us.”
I didn’t want to lift my head to look, but as soon as he mentioned it, I noticed the sound of multiple motorcycle engines nearby.
