As much as it pains me, I know he’s right. So much has happened in the past two hours that whatever’s in Aerin’s system needs to be captured before her body processes it out and we lose that vital information.
Bullet, a medic back when he was in the army and now an underground doctor, unfurls his fabric pouch and removes one or two needles, then he searches for Aerin’s arm under the blanket and carefully begins to draw blood.
I flinch forward the moment his needle makes contact with her skin, stopped only by Pidge’s hand on my chest.
“He knows what he’s doing,” Pidge says. “They both do.”
Bothrefers to the fourth man in the room, Rex.
When Pidge told me he was calling in friends, I hadn’t been sure what to expect, but it makes sense that his two friends are also ex-military.
Rex I’ve met once before, unknowingly, as my time as an enforcer. The moment he turned up in the parking lot, we recognized each other and Rex joked that the mafia is the only place ex-soldiers like us can call home.
As my thoughts tumble through what I walked in on in that shitty apartment, Rex appears in the doorway.
His voice is soft, and his long blond hair, currently scraped back into a ponytail, is so slick he almost looks bald. “Perimeter’s secure. How’s the girl?”
“Out cold,” Bullet replies as he gently slides the needle out of her arm. “I got what I need.”
“Then get out.” It’s difficult not to snap at them, but having more strange men around Aerin is pissing me off in ways I can’t even fully understand. Luckily, Bullet has no issues packing up his kit and exiting the room with Pidge and Rex in tow.
I suck in a deep breath and drag a hand down my face.
What the fuck is going on?
Aerin would never leave on her own, she would never willingly go with men she didn’t know.
Men who now lie dead with several bullets embedded in their bodies and skulls where they belong.
I approach Aerin’s bed slowly and check her pulse. It’s sluggish against my fingertips. As I draw my fingers away, my phonevibrates in my back pocket for the thousandth time since I left that bar.
I ignore it.
My time is better spent gently untangling Aerin from that sheet and averting my eyes as I remove her bra and wrap her up in the duvet.
It’s more difficult to remove my jacket from her shoulders so I let that rest then sit with her, waiting for her to wake up.
I’ve spent enough years in this world to know how dark it gets, but this cloud that surrounds Aerin is darker than most.
I’ve never lost someone before, and she’s been snatched from me twice. Am I losing my touch?
Regardless, this is my fault. When she wakes up, I only pray she allows me to apologize.
After an hour at her side, the urge to urinate drags me from her room and down the very short hall to the bathroom. Relieving myself takes half a minute, and as I walk back to the bedroom, the light in the living room catches my eye.
Pidge is propped up at a table near the window, buried in his laptop.
Bullet sits on the couch in front of the coffee table that’s weighed down by all the weapons we took from that apartment, while Rex stands nearby, poring through the phones we lifted from the attackers.
“Thanks,” I say, cutting through the silence. “For helping.”
Bullet and Rex lift their heads, nodding. “Sure.”
“How is she?” Pidge rubs at one eye as if chasing off tiredness.
“Still asleep.” I walk deeper into the living room. “They drugged her. I mean, they must have for her to deflate so quickly.”
“If they did, I’ll find out,” Bullet says. “Though it will take a day or two.” He examines one of the rifles and lets out a low whistle. “This is a beauty.”
