It’s a struggle to remain upright in the van, but I brace myself on the sidewall, detach the pistol from my calf, and shoot out the back. My heart batters my chest, but I keep shooting. I am not hitting much, but I am participating.
Mason barrels through guards, truck bouncing over their bodies with a nauseating crunch and slush. We swing around another street and come to a dead stop.
I glance between Mason and the open back door. “What are you doing? She said to leave without her.”
He rolls his eyes. “She always says that shit. She’s got thirty seconds, then we go in. You good?”
“Yeah, I’m good.”
Thirty seconds is agony. Each imaginary tick heightens my anxiety. I’m about to storm out of the van when the ceiling goes convex with a loud thud.
“Go!”
Blowing out black smoke, the van hurtles down the road with alarming speed. Again, I nearly fall through the open door. Wetake a sharp left turn, which throws me into the right side of the van, and my pistol bounces out of my hand. Once the car straightens out and we are heading in one constant direction, Taylor swings in from the roof and sprawls out on the floor of the van, face down and groaning. After securing the doors, I crouch next to her prone form. She’s covered in blood, and clearly some of it is hers. She turns over on her back and looks up at me, every part of her a bloody mess.
“I jumped.”
I push hair away from her face and chuckle. “I heard.”
Passing streetlamps illuminate her concerned face in flashes. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I—I’m fine. You’re covered in blood, are you okay?”
“I got stabbed,” she says. Before I can react, she laments, “I cannot believe I let myself get stabbed. What an amateur.”
“You got stabbed? Where?” My eyes traverse her body but there’s so much blood, fresh and dried, that I cannot see a wound.
“It was only a little stab, I will be fine. I need to sit up.” She shuffles her palms to try and brace her weight.
“Absolutely not. Stay put. My ‘fancy education’ tells me it will be painful for you to move. Lie here until we get back.”
“I am fine. It’s a cut.” She tries to sit up and gasps in pain, then eases back down. “You know what? I’ll lie here until we get back.”
“Good idea, hero.”
“Thank you.”
10
Mason makes it back to the brothel at what I assume is light speed. Our arrival is anticipated and several people file out of the red-tinted entrance toward the van to assist us. Taylor hooks her arm around my waist for support and waves off offers to help.
“Good Lord, child, you’re covered in blood!” Delilah emerges from behind the others. Instead of her crimson dress, she’s clad in a scarlet satin kimono and matching stiletto heels that make her nearly as tall as I am. “Come, around the back.”
“Not all my blood,” Taylor says as she and I hobble to the side door. She’s gingerly limping, favoring her left leg, which must’ve taken the brunt of her fall. “I got stabbed.”
“You were stabbed?” Delilah’s eyes widen in alarm as she pushes us into what turns out to be an extension of the lobby, possessing an elevator.
“Oh, don’t worry, it’s a little stab,” I scoff. “And it happened before she jumped three stories onto the hood of a car.”
Taylor meekly offers, “I also may have bruised a rib.”
Delilah rings for the lift. “Why on earth did you jump three stories?”
“The elevator was broken,” Taylor deadpans with a wince. One of the soldiers escorting us chuckles under his breath, until Delilah straightens him with a stare.
Inside Taylor’s room, Delilah and Faith take charge, ordering the others to retrieve supplies. Armed with enough medical paraphernalia to cure several terminal diseases, everyone leaves except for them.
“You can get cleaned up,” Faith says to me. “She’s in good hands, I promise.”
