The bathroom.
“Stay with me, Chase.”
Sprinting down the short hallway, I throw open the first door. Bingo. I rip open the cabinet beneath the sink. Cleaning supplies. Old shampoo bottles. Then, shoved toward the back, a battered first aid kit that looks like it was dug up from ancient catacombs.
My fingers close around it, my pulse thundering. I snatch a towel off the rack and rush back to the living room.
Chase hasn’t moved.
Dropping to my knees, I shove the coffee table aside and tear open the kit. Gauze, alcohol wipes, bandages. Not nearly enough for a bullet wound, but it’ll have to do.
“All right, rock star,” I mutter, forcing steadiness into my voice as I press the towel to his leg. “You’re not dying on me tonight.”
His lids flutter, eyes barely opening.
Exhaling sharply, I peel the wrapper off a roll of gauze with my teeth. I wind it around his thigh, my hands shaking as I pull it tight. Chase groans, his head pressing back against the couch.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know it hurts.”
But I have to keep going, because if I don’t get the bleeding under control, it won’t matter how much it hurts.
The dog whines again, nosing Chase’s limp hand. My chest clenches. I focus, knotting the gauze with quick, jerky movements. Blood still seeps through, but not as fast.
“Hey,” he murmurs. His lips are dry, throat bobbing. A hand tentatively lifts, two fingers flicking my hair. “Thanks, Annie.”
Annie.
Nobody calls me Annie.
I swallow. “Yeah. Sure.”
Then he passes out cold.
Triple crap.
He begged me not to call the cops or bring him to a hospital, but I’m running out of options.
I glance over at Toaster, the dog’s pointed nose resting on Chase’s hip, two brown eyes aimed hopelessly at his owner. Tears well, melancholy stabbing at my heart like a hot skewer. But the feeling is quickly replaced by a sense of determination as I lift off the floor, reach for a ratty quilt, and drape it over this stranger who has spun my evening on its axis.
I bolt for the front door. There has to be someone. I just need a phone.
Frigid air and serpentine snow smack me in the face as I rush outside in my bare feet and bloodstained party dress. “Help!” I call out, pitching my voice over the hissing wind. “I need help!” Glancing left and right, I choose right, stomping toward the brick tri-level with dim lighting bleeding through the pulled curtains.
Catapulting myself up the three porch steps, I start banging on the screen. “Hey! I need a phone!” Demonic music and shrieking snares seep through, vibrating the walls. I press the doorbell fifty billion times, pounding both fists against the frame. “Please help me!”
Footsteps. I hear them shuffling toward the front of the house.
A pang of hope slices through the fear.
A moment later, a scruffy guy in a white T-shirt opens the door, looking high as a kite. “Who the fuck’re you?”
I begin my rambling spiel, my words tripping over each other like a collapsing house of cards. “Please. I need to use your phone. The guy next door—Chase—he’s hurt. Really hurt. I just need—”
“Whoa.” He squints at me, frowning. “Your hair has…purple in it.”
“Oh my God. Can I please use your phone?”
More squinting, frowning, blinking. Finally, he snaps back and fishes out a cell phone from the pocket of his sweatpants. “Yeah, yeah. Do your thing.”
