“It’s a little… uncomfortable,” he says, voice tight. My laugh is nothing but a gurgled, wounded sound. “Can I just…” I help him lie down, stretching out on his back. It gives me better access to him. “That’s better.”
Better forwho? My hands tremble as I lift his shirt, searching for the wound. Where is the bleeding coming from? There’s too much. So fucking much. “Where did it hit you?”
Movement to my left makes me turn, body tensing in anticipation of a fight. There better not be anyone else trying to get their cut, because they’ll leave this place in a body bag, in fucking pieces.
It’s just Greer, standing and moving away from the struggling Jack. He gets two wobbly steps before he collapses onto all fours. “Shit,” he whispers harshly, head bowed. “Ken, is he—”
“I don’t know.” Like Greer is faring any better in this scenario. Where the hell is Six?
“Called—I called—” Greer doesn’t finish the sentence, but I get the gist. An ambulance. Hopefully one that’s already around the corner because he needs help right now.
Kendrick grips my wrist weakly. “S’alright,” he slurs. “Think it just grazed me. A few stitches and I’ll be right as rain.”
“Bullshit.” If he’s trying to convince me he’s fine, he needs to do a better job than that. A graze doesn’t cause this much blood. Nothing is right. Everything is wrong. Heat prickles at the back of my eyes, and I don’t bother controlling them, tears wetting my cheeks. “Where does it hurt? Where are you bleeding from?” It needs pressure added to it. I can’t fucking find the bullet hole. There’s blood everywhere. I need to make this right. I need to help him.
There.Not a graze but almost. Right there on the side. Relief doesn’t come because it doesn’t matter. He’s still bleeding, and I need to staunch it before help arrives. Otherwise, he won’t make it to the hospital.Christ shit fuck.Yanking my shirt up and over my head, I scrunch it up and press it against his wound. Kendrick groans quietly, his stomach convulsing from the pain.
“I know it hurts, but we need to keep it there, baby.” Did it go right through? Is there another—shit. I don’t have another shirt, so I scrunch up what I can of the one he’s wearing and add pressure to the hole against his back. If he bleeds out here before help comes, I’ll never forgive him. No. I’ll never forgive myself. I was supposed to protect him and keep him safe. How could I have failed a second time?
“You called me ‘baby,’” he mumbles, words barely graspable.
I brush my palm across his forehead, getting his curls away from his eyes. They’re too dull, not quite focused on anything. “I’ll call you that whenever you want, just stay with me.”
“Not going anywhere. Need you too much.” His eyes close, and fear grips me again before Kendrick squeezes my wrist.
Still here. Still awake. Still breathing.
A noise from Greer catches my attention. He’s lost a lot of colour in his face—what I can see of it through the blood covering half of it. He needs immediate medical attention. They both do.
Greer opens his mouth, his throat working like he’s trying to say something, and then he drops sideways. He hits the floor at the same time Six rushes through the open door.
Chapter twenty-nine
Spencer
Light touches against mycheek and forehead wake me, and I flinch away from the annoyance, sitting up. I’ve been hunched over the bed too long, and my back protests at the movement.
Kendrick’s awake, his fingers brushing my skin, twisting the cord attached to the IV in the back of his hand. “I told you to go home.”
“And I told you what I thought of that.” As if I’d leave him here alone. Wherever he is, that’s where I belong even if I hate the smell of hospitals.
His caresses are feather light as they move across my forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“How amIfeeling? I’m not the one that got shot.”
“Went straight through. Doctor says it should heal pretty good. Minimal scarring. It’ll match the ones on my knee.”
“That’s not funny.” I’ll never forget the sheer terror on Six’s face when he arrived. Waiting for him to check Greer was the longest few minutes of my entire life. And then I couldn’t do anything when the paramedics got there. Useless, with Kendrick’s blood all over me. Our blood types don’t match, and my advanced-first-aid knowledge has nothing on what they could do for him.
“I know. I’m right here, Spence.”
“I can’t. Ken—I can’t—” My voice breaks. Seeing him here, clean, awake, healing, does nothing to ease the tension I’ve been living with for what feels like years but has only been days.
“What happened isn’t your fault. We were all caught off-guard. You saved me, Spence. Did everything you needed to while you waited. Six said the same thing, remember?”
I don’t fucking care what Six says. If I’d done my job, he’d never have been shot in the first place. That’s on me and no one else. Prevention is better than the cure, and I failed. I failed, and Kendrick is sitting in this hospital bed because of me.Again.
“I can see you thinking,” Kendrick murmurs. “And don’t you dare take this on. We got the guy, and we’re all alive. That’s a job well done, Spence. We can’t change what happened, and I can’t even say it won’t happen again, because we don’t exactly have the safest jobs in the world. I’ll try not to get shot next time.”
