Ten. Eleven. Yoli's flat behind the second truck with Lashes over the top of her. My girl from the eighth door is under the truck itself, both hands clamped over her ears, and she's looking right at me.
Eleven. I have eleven.
Finn drops into the gravel beside me with blood on his face that isn't his.
"Can you drive?" He's already pulling me up by the arm.
"Yes—"
"Third truck. Take five and go, don't wait on the rest of us." He shoves me toward it. "Damon's got the road open. Go."
"Finn—"
"Now, Mila!"
Somebody's screaming Cricket across the yard.
It's Razor's voice first, and then Amara's, and then it's everywhere, coming off every man in the yard.
Cricket. Cricket. Break contact.
And the whole night changes.
The club stops holding ground and starts moving backward, firing as they go, herding, the women going into the trucks in twos with a body between them and the light every single time.
I get five women into the third truck.
I'm shoving the fourth one up into the cab when Yoli goes down.
She's running, and then she isn't.
She folds sideways into the gravel about six feet from the tailgate, and she doesn't make one sound, and the sound she doesn't make is the worst thing I have ever heard.
"Yoli!"
I'm out of the cab before I know I've moved.
I get my hands under her arms and haul, and Finn's there in a second, and between us we get her up and into the bed of the truck and I climb in on top of her.
There's blood coming out of a fifteen-year-old.
"Drive!" Somebody's screaming it and I think it's me. "Fucking drive!"
The truck moves.
I've got both hands pressed down on the hole under her collarbone and I'm talking, and I don't know what I'm saying.
My mother's Spanish is coming out of me. The things you say to a child.Mija. Mi vida. Ya, ya, ya, estoy aquí.
Her eyes are open and she's looking at the roof of the truck bed.
"Stay with me." I get my forehead down close to hers. "Yoli. Look at my face. Not up there. At my face."
She looks at my face.
"There's a doctor." I keep the pressure on and I keep talking. "Forty minutes. There's a doctor and there's a woman named Sakura. She's the one who's going to take care of you." Her eyes are starting to drift and I get closer. "She's a woman, Yoli. Do you hear me? A woman is going to take care of you. And I'll be in the room the whole time. The whole time."
We had planned to get the women medical attention as soon as we got them off the property, at a secure location.
