She didn’t answer.
I touched her cheek. “Lori?”
A rattling cough seized her. I tried to help her sit, but I trembled so hard that neither my arms nor fingers would close around her body.
I pushed my hair out of my cold, wet eyes just as a crimson spray stained the snow beneath her open mouth.
“Help!” I roared, gathering one of her hands in mine and squeezing. “Stay with me. Lori?”
Silence.
Dread carved up my insides just as metal clanked. The gate! Someone was finally coming!
“Help is on the way. Just stay with me.”
Quiet. She was horribly, terribly quiet.
I slid two trembling fingers to her neck, trying to locate her pulse point, but couldn’t get my fingertips to settle. They kept bouncing off her frigid skin. I hovered my knuckles in front of her parted lips, praying for thready heat.
“Nikki!”
I looked up, squinted into the snow-flecked darkness. Saw two human bodies racing toward me, one topped with shoulder-length black hair and the other with long golden curls.
“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered.
I gulped back a sob. “I c-can’t find a pulse. I-I . . .”
“Are you hurt?” Lucas dropped onto his knees.
“No.” Tears fled my eyes, carved hot runnels down my icy cheeks. “Is she—is she dead?”
He batted my hand away from Lori’s neck, then prodded the long column of pale skin. He didn’t nod, but his solemn expression confirmed what I’d already suspected.
A sob stumbled out of me. And more tears. I scraped them away with the back of my hand, not caring if her blood was tainted with silver.
She was dead.
Lori was dead.
“I sh-should have . . . sh-should . . .”Have gone for help. Howled louder. Banged on the gatekeeper’s window.“I asked her t-to shift.” I clapped my palm to my mouth as I realized it had probably disturbed the pellets, propelled one of them into her heart.
Not only was I inept but stupid.
My throat constricted, then expanded to accommodate a fresh sob.
Sarah shrugged out of her jacket and draped it around my hunched shoulders, then her mouth moved around words but my ears were buzzing, so I missed all she said.
I sat back on my heels, and my limp fists toppled onto the reddened skin of my thighs. “The shot. It just c-came out of n-nowhere.”
There was so much blood everywhere. Under my nails. On my palms. Around my knuckles.
My chest cramped as more tears raced down my cheeks and plopped off my chin, drilling tiny holes into the scarlet snow beneath my bent legs.
“How come you were out here alone?” Lucas’s voice reached my ears again, thumped against the quiet hush filling my head.
“There was a f-fire. At the bunker.”
“Lucas, we need to get her inside. Her skin’s turning blue.” Sarah picked up one of my hands and rubbed it between hers, trying to drive heat into my numb fingers.
