“Please, hear me out,” Tammy said. “You can hate that I needed to align with these assholes, but you owe me five minutes tolisten.Not here; we need to move. Come with me, and I’ll show you everything. You can talk to Cliff.” She paused, wincing. “It shouldn’t have been like that. I never wanted you boys involved, but… Fuck it, it’s too late now. What’s done is done.”
“What have you done with Everett?” Lee demanded harshly. He anchored his stance, raising a handgun in Tammy’s direction.
I gave him an incredulous look. Lee Rhodes holding agun? It reeked of desperation, and I saw it then: the same earnest, ground-down resolve that burned in me to sacrifice anything, even our own principles, to save the people we loved so fiercely.
And it was well-founded. For all we knew, Delilah, Sylvia, and the others had only minutes to live.
Tammy’s gaze slid to him, sizing him up like she had just noticed he was there. Lee shuffled his dominant hand on the handle, his finger tentative over the trigger.
“Honey, your grip is a nightmare,” she said coolly. “Learn how to discharge that thing before you threaten someone.”
Lee’s eyes tightened at the corners.
BLAM.
“I’ll manage,” he said.
I blinked, and Tammy was stumbling, her back slamming into a gnarled tree that had shot through the concrete. Shock rippled through me, my breathing staggering. I threw Lee a stunned look. He’d fuckingshot her.
Not only that, but judging by the blood trickling from her right arm, it was a damn good shot. A non-lethal clip to her dominant arm with an accuracy that tookyearsto hone.
I rushed to kneel by Tammy, cradling her and stripping the gun from her weakened grip in the same motion. Lee’s hand shook like his own actions had violated him, but he strode closer.
“Enough sob stories. Answer my question. Where is Everett?” Lee asked again, force punching behind each word—because it wasn’t reallyCliffhe was after. “The woman with him—”
“The fucking witch, you mean?” Tammy sneered, her voice shaking with pain.
For a moment, I thought Lee would strike her for that.
Tammy clamped a hand over her arm, blood ribboning over her fingers where the gunshot wound seeped. Fire blazed in her eyes, that unshakeable fight in her I’d seen aimed at so many monsters over the years.
But tonight, something was different. A weariness flooded her, choking down the anger. She leaned back in my arms, tension slowly melting even through the veil of distrust for a hunter whowould spare a fairy’s life. I wondered if she still saw a scared, gangly teenager when she looked at me, or if I’d surrendered those days now.
“If he finds out I’ve helped you—even with this—he’ll kill me,” she said, voice strained. She kept checking the wound, lips trembling with the effort of muscling through the agony. “He’ll hurt my boy.”
Something cold and cruel in me stirred. After betraying us, putting all of our lives in peril, maybe deserved Eros’ wrath. But her kid didn’t. And even now, I remembered that fateful night that had changed my life forever—her fervent embrace. How Tammy had smelled like safety and smoke, combing her fingers through my sweaty locks while terror wracked my body with shivers.
She had helped put my shattered world back together.
“Eros won’t know.” I nodded at the wound pointedly, then glanced back at the trembling weapon Lee still pointed at her chest. “It will look like a struggle—we’ll make sure of it.”
Tammy caught on, shuddering out a breath. She touched my face, gaze agonized in its pleading. “Come to your senses. Don’t do this, please. We should be on the same team, not committing suicide for the sake of these abominations.”
“You can’t change my mind, Coach,” I whispered.
She squeezed her eyes—against the pain of the gunshot or fear of Eros’ retaliation, I couldn’t be sure. “Unmarked transit shuttle, headed north on the highway.”
My heart staggered—they had already left the hotel.
I gestured for Lee to hand me his pocket square, which I fashioned into a crude but snug wrapping around the wound on Tammy’s upper arm. It would stifle the bleeding enough to buy her time.
“One of thoseabominationssaved my life in more ways than I can tell you,” I said. “Maybe you’ll understand someday, if we all make it out of this.”
I stood, moving with urgency. We only had minutes for a shot at catching up to the transport vehicle. I tossed Lee a line of rope found in the wreckage, instructing him to tie Tammy to the tree so she couldn’t follow us. It would paint the picture that she had been loyal to Eros to the end, protecting her from retaliation.
At least, that was the hope.
Moving urgently, I sourced additional weapons from the dismembered bodies of the guards that mingled with the corpses of the monsters they’d been attempting to transport. I tried not to stare at any one point too long, but the unsettling imagery of Roisin’s vinework sprouting through eye sockets and body cavities was everywhere, and the smell of earth and gore filled my lungs on every breath. After being woefully underarmed all night, the heavy weight of a double-barrel shotgun slung over my back, and a pistol tucked in my waistband was a song to the adrenaline still thrumming in my veins.
