Then the door burst open and Nicole flinched, panic filling her eyes as a shadow filled the doorway. “If you shoot me, you’ll kill her too!”
I didn’t understand what she was saying, because I didn’t have a gun, but then a pair of boots and jean-clad legs appeared to the left in my blurred vision.
“Good thing I don’t need a gun for this,” James said, then kicked the toe of his boot into her ribs and sent her several feet from me.
Nicole screamed as she landed on her injured arm, but James was already kneeling beside me. My eyes lifted to his, and I wasn’t surprised to see the horror in them.
His gaze swept over my welts and blood, then landed on the pool of blood next to my left side. His eyes lifted to mine in question.
“She stabbed me.” I gave him a shaky half-smile. “I didn’t get a chance to use anything Tex showed me.”
He pressed his hand to my side with his bare hand, trying to apply pressure.
“James,” I said, barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry I left. I thought…”
His jaw clenched. “Save your sorries. There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m gonna to get you out of here, but I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Just help me sit up.”
He hesitated like he didn’t think that was the best idea, but then he scooped his arm under my upper back and lifted me to a sitting position.
Nicole was still lying on the floor, moaning. The knife lay on the floor between us.
I reached for it as Nicole lunged for it too, a wild, feral look in her eyes.
A gunshot rang out and blood flowed from a wound in her upper right arm, but it didn’t stop her. She grabbed the hilt of the knife.
James shot her again, but she lifted the knife, tip pointing down. When she lunged for me, I used all my weight to push her onto her back and grab her knife hand, twisting her wrist away from me. But my forward momentum not only pointed the knife toward her chest but drove the blade in.
Shock filled her eyes and her face instantly lost color.
“Meet you in hell,” she spat at me.
“Looks like you’re getting there first,” I whispered, struggling to breathe.
James pulled me off her and tried to get me to lie down again, but I pushed his arm away and scrambled to my feet. “No. Get me out of here.”
I grabbed at his clothes, and he wrapped an arm around my back to pull me upright. “You need to be lying down, Harper. You’re hemorrhaging.”
“No,” I said forcefully. “I’m not dying in this room.” I tried to take a step, but my legs gave out and my body crumpled.
He scooped me into his arms and held me close. “You’re not gonna die, Harper,” he said, his voice tight as he carried me out of the room and down a dark hall. “You’re too damn stubborn.”
“Yeah,” I said, then coughed, pain filling my entire chest. “It’ll take more than that bitch to kill me,” I said, but the words felt loose and I wasn’t sure I’d even said them. My peripheral vision had turned dark.
“Damn straight.”
We were bouncing, and I had the vague idea that we were going up stairs.
“Stay with me, Harper,” he said in a pleading tone that caught me by surprise.
“You came for me,” I said in awe, my cheek resting against his chest.
“You thought I wouldn’t?” he scoffed, but he didn’t sound pissed. “I’ll always come for you.”
I wanted to promise him the same, but I wasn’t sure I’d be around to hold up my end of the deal. Then cold air hit my body, and I began to shiver uncontrollably. But the dark sky was above me, which meant we’d made it outside. I forced my gaze up to James’s face. “Thank you for not letting me die in there.”
He glanced down at me, fear in his eyes. “You’re not gonna die,” he ordered.
