I didn’t know what to do. Fuck, fuck,fuck.
“If you just wake up, I can get you out of here. I can get you to a hospital?—”
“Grace?”
The familiar voice was nothing to me. All I cared about was Henley, all I could think about was Henley.
Henley bleeding. Henley passed out. Henley on the verge of death.
Never getting to kiss him again. Never getting to hold him or hug him or wake up to his body beneath mine.
I tried to grab his shirt, to do anything to move him. But I didn’t even have a car here?—
A hand grabbed my wrist and I gasped, dropping my attempts to strike at whoever had touched me. No one could hurt us, I had to save him, to get him out?—
Another hand grabbed my raised arm, halting my attack. I squirmed, shoving against them, doing everything I could to get them away from him.
“Grace, stop,” came that same voice, calm despite my rage.
“You can’t touch him!” I screamed, barely able to see through my watery eyes.
Large arms wrapped around me, pulling me into a hard, warm chest. Their hold was a vice, giving me no space to move. I squeezed my hands between my face and their body, trying to bang against them, to squeeze their skin, to do anything to get them to let me go. Henley wasdying.
“He needs a hospitalnow,” another man’s voice announced, close behind me. Somewhere in the distant echoes of my mind, I knew that one too.
The arms around me tightened and a hand cupped the back of my head. My muscles felt weak, the fight seeping out of me almost instantly.
“It’s all my fault,” I sobbed, not realizing I was out of breath.
“You can tell us what happened later,” the man holding me said. “Right now, we need to help him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to gather control of myself as I gripped his jacket.
Booker’sjacket.
“Do I need to carry you, or can you walk?” Booker asked, his voice a rumble in his chest.
“I-I can walk,” I told him. His arms slowly loosened, but I leaned on him for support a moment longer. When I finally turned around, I found Austin pulling Henley into his arms. He was pale and completely limp in Austin’s hold. The sight hurt, my heart squeezing in response.
“Is he going to die?” I whispered, unable to take my eyes off Henley.
Austin and Booker shared a look before Booker set a hand on my shoulder and led me toward the end of the hall. Austin followed close behind.
A series of turns later, we came upon a staircase. We climbed them quickly, coming out on the back side of the club. Rather than going through the chaos of bodies through the building, they steered me toward the back exit that led out to an alley.
The cold air barely registered as we left the alley and approached a truck parked beside the curb.
“How did you know where we were?” I asked as Austin slid Henley onto the back seat and Booker got in behind the wheel.
“Henley told us about this place after you showed up here without telling him. He thought it might become a problem one day,” Booker explained.
“And we tell each other everything,” Austin added. “Well, almost everything.”
“But it wasn’t simply a matter of guessing. We have thelocation on his phone,” Booker went on, starting the truck and blasting the heater. “We don’t watch it like hawks, but when something goes wrong, we check it.”
Austin left Henley lying on the back seat, allowing me space to climb in. He handed me his jacket, silently telling me to keep pressure on the wound. Henley's Carhartt was fisted in his other hand, soaked completely through with blood. Then he closed my door before getting in the passenger seat.
I gently lifted Henley’s head, laying him on my lap before pressing the jacket to the hole in his shoulder. “How did you know something was wrong?”
