Warning Shot (Dusk Valley #3)

Chapter 1

one

. . .

SUTTON

The scream ravaged my throat.

Heedless of the danger I was putting myself in, I moved, quite literally throwing myself into the line of fire to run toward the man who’d taken a bullet to the chest. Distantly, I registered more shots as they rang out, but I only had attention to spare for the man on the ground.

On the gaping hole in the bulletproof vest that had done absolutely nothing to protect him.

Lane.

Oh, god. Lane was shot.

Dropping to my knees at his side, my medical kit tipping and spilling its contents across the ground next to me, I placed my hands over the wound, sealing it as best as I could. Blood instantly coated my palms, attempting to squeeze free.

Someone knelt at Lane’s other side, and I looked up at Crew.

“Bag him,” I said, attempting to keep my voice as steady as possible, though my shaking hands gave my distress away.

Crew nodded, reaching across his brother’s chest for the supplies.

He located the intubation kit, tearing the fresh tube open and grasping it in one hand before taking the laryngoscope in the other.

Positioning himself on his stomach above Lane’s head, Crew unhinged his brother’s jaw and inserted the scope into his mouth, using it as a guide to get the tube down his trachea and into his lungs.

Next, he attached the bag to the end of the tube sticking out of Lane’s mouth and pumped it a few times. He grabbed my stethoscope from around my neck, settled the earpieces in, and placed the chest piece over his sternum. A moment later, he said, “I’m in.”

With my hands still against Lane’s chest, I uselessly watched Crew work on his brother, afraid to move, feeling far too much like I was holding his life inside of him. Once an IV had been inserted into the back of Lane’s hand, Crew looked at me for guidance.

“We need to move him. Now.”

The rest of the Lawless boys and several of his deputies rallied around Lane; a backboard appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I remained in position as the men collared and loaded him, strapping him in around my hands, and we raced for where Finn had landed the rescue chopper.

Everyone but Finn, Crew, and I fell back once we got Lane secured inside, and we were in the air moments later.

“Boise!” I shouted at Finn, who merely jerked his head in the approximation of a nod as his hands worked at the controls.

Still refusing to take my hands off Lane’s chest, I let Crew work around me, pulling stacks of gauze squares out of the medical kit to pack the wound.

I tried like hell to marshal my emotions, to tap into my training. Tried to remind myself that Lane’s life didn’t matter any more than the countless I’d already saved in my career.

But I’d be damned if I could make myself believe it.

The monitor we’d hooked him up, the monitor began beeping incessantly, and my eyes flicked to it in horror.

His stats were dropping—fast.

“We’re losing him!” Crew shouted as the rapid signal of Lane’s vitals flatlined with one long, mournful beeeeeeeeeeep.

“No!” I screamed, immediately shifting from the steady pressure on his chest to CPR compressions while Crew stuffed the wound full of gauze. “C’mon, Lane. Stay with me.”

All concept of time, of the world around me, faded away as I continued to perform CPR, timing my compressions by mentally chanting “breathe breathe breathe” over and over again.

Crew hooked him up to the defibrillator, and I lifted my hands. He shouted, “Clear!” and shocked him. Lane’s body bowed upward, dropping back with a thunk.

No movement on his stats.

“Again,” I demanded. We needed to shock him back into rhythm.

After another shock, Lane’s body obeyed at last, the numbers on the monitor steadily returning to normal—or as normal as possible considering he had a gaping hole in his chest.

Crew sagged against the side of the helicopter in relief while I removed the soaked gauze from Lane’s wound, repacked it, and taped it down.

When we finally touched down on the roof of the hospital, Crew threw the door open as emergency staff raced out to greet us.

I didn’t stop to consider the possibility that I wasn’t allowed to follow Lane and the trauma team into the ER. They’d have to pry my cold, dead hands off the rails of that gurney.

“Stats?” the doctor demanded as we wheeled Lane into the elevator to take us down from the helipad.

“Thirty-five. Active lifestyle. GSW to the upper chest at close range, no exit wound. Flatlined once en route. He was wearing a vest, but…”

“With a large caliber weapon, and if fired within a few feet, it’s not uncommon for it to pierce the vest,” the doctor said conversationally.

Like that was supposed to make me feel better.

Like that would give his family and employees who were no doubt filling the waiting room at that moment peace of mind.

When the elevator opened, we made a sharp left turn through the swinging doors into the emergency department and right into the operating room.

Once he was transferred to the table, I was unceremoniously kicked out.

I didn’t know how long I stood outside, watching the team work on Lane through the little porthole window in the door, but eventually, a nurse approached.

“Miss? You can’t stay here.”

Turning my head, I looked at the woman without really seeing her, cataloging only the pale blue of her scrubs and paler blonde of her hair. Shades too fucking soft and bright for the darkness swirling within me.

When I faced her fully, she gasped.

“You’re covered in blood.”

With detachment, I glanced down and studied myself. The navy of my tee was coated in Lane’s life force and suctioned to my abdomen, and I absently plucked it away from my skin. The dark material of my pants on my thighs was practically black and wetly clinging to me.

And my hands.

In the chaos and aftermath of the shot, I’d failed to don gloves. My normally pristine skin and nails were stained red. I knew from experience it would take days to fully fade.

My eyes darted around the immediate vicinity, finding all attention on me, expressions radiating sympathy.

What a picture I must have painted, drenched in blood and rooted to the spot in the middle of a busy emergency department while doctors worked to save the life of my…what?

I had no idea how to finish that sentence.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice coming out unintentionally soft. “I’ll just…”

Trailing off, I bolted for the nearest restroom, grateful for the chance to collect myself.

Of course, the moment I was alone, I broke. Sobs racked my body, and my legs collapsed beneath me. Curled into a ball on the sterile, cracked linoleum, I fell apart.

Over the course of my career, I’d worked on plenty of people I knew.

None of those calls hit me as hard as this one had, and I wasn’t quite ready to face the reason why.

All I could admit right then was that I wouldn’t survive if he didn’t make it off that table alive.

Though it took far longer than I would’ve liked, I finally managed to pull myself together enough to get up. With the limited resources at my disposal—soap, water, cheap industrial paper towels—I cleaned up as best as I could.

After fixing my hair and wiping all remnants of tear-streaked makeup off my face, I took a final look at myself in the mirror.

“Well,” I said out loud, “time to face the firing squad.” Then I winced, muttering, “Too soon,” as I exited the restroom.

I kept my eyes downcast as I made my way through the ED and back into the main area of the hospital, beelining straight for the elevator.

On the ground floor, the crowd noise, though subdued, greeted me before I rounded the corner and the waiting room came into view.

A murmur went through the group when I appeared.

At first, I couldn’t even see the Lawless family through the sheer number of gathered deputies and support staff from the Dusk Valley Sheriff’s Department.

With a deep breath that did nothing to quell my anxiety, I waded into the fray, internally flinching every time a hand landed on my shoulder in an “atta girl” type pat or when someone thanked me.

“Hey guys,” I said sheepishly when I reached Lane’s family.

The words had barely left my mouth before Birdie was on her feet, drawing me into a hug. It took everything I had not to stiffen in her embrace.

“Thank you,” she murmured repeatedly, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe.

When her grip loosened and she pulled back, I looked anywhere but at her tear-streaked face or the rest of the family when I said, “I didn’t do anything.” I blinked a few times, breathing slowly to fight off my own tears. “I almost lost him.”

“But you didn’t,” Finn reminded me, his hand reaching up to squeeze my shoulder. Normally, I didn’t mind physical contact, but at that moment, every nerve ending in my body was overstimulated. Being touched was rapidly fraying my control, and I needed to get away from these people before I lost it.

To Finn, I merely nodded. Now was neither the time nor the place to argue with him, not when Lane’s fate no longer rested in my hands. Instead, I withdrew into myself, walking out into the lobby for a moment of peace.

Truthfully, I didn’t deserve their praise.

I wasn’t even sure I deserved to remain in the same room as all of these people who openly loved and respected him—something I’d never quite managed.

And in return, he loved these people as fiercely as he could, meeting their love with equal fervor, giving them the same all-encompassing energy he gave everything else in his life.

There’d been a time when my name would’ve been at the top of that list—until I’d spurned him.

The whole ordeal, from Lane being shot to me standing here alone now, had taken no more than an hour, but my entire life had changed. Shifted into something unrecognizable, in those sixty minutes.

I couldn’t face the possibility that he wouldn’t walk out of this hospital on his own two feet, so I was manifesting it: Lane would survive. No, he would more than survive. He would make a full recovery and come back better than before.

Hell, my chest hurt. Putting my back to the wall, I sank down to the floor, hidden from view of the waiting room by the check-in desk. Drawing my legs up to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them and dropped my forehead to my knees.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled for six, held it for four, and exhaled for four, using the breathing technique I learned from my therapist ages ago to marshal my emotions. As adrenaline fled my system, I allowed that truth—that Lane would be okay; I’d accept nothing less—to settle in.

But that wasn’t the only truth now sinking deep into my bones. This other one had always been there, though I’d managed to ignore it, shove it into a box and bury it deep in my soul for over fifteen long years.

Memories flashed through my mind. Moments in time I’d both tried like hell to forget and clung to in an attempt to protect them, knowing I’d never get any more like them.

Attempting to perfectly preserve them like a dragonfly in amber, a relic of a day long since passed, clearly visible in my mind but completely untouchable.

Navigating Boise State’s campus that first week of freshman year, finding ourselves not so far from home but in a different world entirely.

How by the next fall, Lane had gone from someone I’d been friendly with in that way all kids from a small town were, to someone I considered my best friend, to… more.

The transformation of my relationship with Lane hadn’t happened overnight but spanned years.

When those final roadblocks between us came down, when nothing stood between us and giving in, it had been all too easy to fall into our new normal. Back then, I remembered feeling like I could’ve done anything so long as I had him by my side.

Until the night that once again changed everything. Until one party altered not just the course of my relationship with him, but all of my relationships. My entire perception of the world changed in a blink, in a haze of pain and despair, the kinds of memories I wished I could forget.

In the aftermath, I should’ve drawn him closer, held tight to the one thing that remained constant. I should’ve clung to the man who’d vowed to be with me through it all, should’ve thrown myself into his open arms and let him shield me as best as he could from the hellscape my life had become.

I liked to think there were a lot of things I’d do differently if I could go back and change it all, but I wasn’t sure I meant it.

After that night, I became unrecognizable and nearly unbearable to be around.

There were days when I thought it would’ve been easier to end it all than keep pushing forward and keep forcing my loved ones to deal with me.

Lane should’ve been a reason to keep living, and while I’d obviously found other ways to fight through and come out on the other side, unfortunately, he wound up being another casualty in the war I’d waged with myself.

A war, perhaps, I’d never stopped waging. There was no truce to be found, no white flag to be waved. Not when, even though so much had changed, there was one thing that hadn’t.

I was still desperately, irrevocably in love with Lane Lawless.

And I had no idea what to do about it.