“I should have been with you!” she bellowed, stumbling into the nearest wall.
“Rachel!” I exclaimed, rushing toward her.
I helped her to steady herself before she stared deeply into my soul. “They should have taken me—me, too.”
“Tell me what I can do to help you. Tell me what you need. Whatever it is, I can help you negoti—No! Jax! I need help!”
My sister’s legs came out from beneath her and she collapsed into my arms. Footsteps sounded quickly behind me before Jax appeared, scooping his arms beneath hers. He hoisted her into the nearest seat in the waiting room where she slumped over, her body hanging over my right shoulder as her blood dripped onto my thighs.
Then, I saw it.
I watched her hand loosen around the gun she held.
“I got her,” Jax said.
I slowly raked my gaze up to his and he nodded. So, I went for it.
“No, no, no. No! Stop!” Rachel exclaimed.
But she was too weak to fight me. Too weak to fight any of it, really. Her skin continued to pale as her blood spilled out onto the tile floor, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she bled out, right then and there. I plucked the gun from her weakened fingers and slid it across the floor, watching as it disappeared into the darkness of the hallway in front of us.
“Got anything else we should know about?” Jax asked.
Rachel scoffed. “Fuck you.”
I saw a glimmer of something shiny on her hip. “Left hip, you’re closer to it.”
Jax reached down and pulled a gigantic butcher’s knife seemingly from out of nowhere. He studied it before tossing it down that same hallway, and I listened to it clatter before it slammed into the cold metal of the gun that the darkness had swallowed whole.
Then, I gripped my sister’s hair and pulled her head up so that her stare locked with mine.
“Anything else we need to pull off you before we get you the medical attention that you need?” I asked.
She snarled. “Over my dead body.”
“We can strip search you,” Jax said as he stood to his feet, “but something tells me you won’t survive it. So, be straight with us. Do you want help, or do you want to die? Because those are your only options.”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “On my ankles.”
I bent down and plucked the knife off her left ankle and the small handgun off her right.
“And my right pocket,” she said flatly.
Jax stuffed his hand inside the pocket of her black bodysuit and pulled out a set of throwing knives.
“Dee would love those,” he murmured, tossing them onto the chair beside us.
“Anything else?” I asked as I helped her stand.
She groaned before leaning heavily against me. “Nope, that’s it.”
“You sure?” Jax asked.
And when Rachel sighed, I rolled my eyes. “Come on, where is it?”
Her legs shook against mine. “Down the back of the suit. See the handle?”
“Jesus,” Jax grumbled as he unsheathed…
