Chapter Eighteen
Abby
I’m jolted from a restless sleep as strong arms haul me off the bed and toss me over someone’s shoulder.
The sudden movement makes my head spin.
“Put me down,” I rasp, my throat burning with every word.
“Be still, woman,” a man mutters, shifting my weight higher against his shoulder. “We need to move quickly.”
“Patch?” I whisper, squinting through the fog in my head. “What’s going on?”
“Not sure,” he answers, cracking my front door just enough to peer outside. His body goes tense immediately. “Your brother sent out an SOS. That means everyone gets their ass to the bunker.”
My stomach drops.
“I can walk,” I insist weakly, my voice scraping my throat raw.
“Not fast enough,” Patch says. “Crusher says there’s at least one sniper out there. Maybe more.”
He shifts me again, and suddenly we’re moving.
Fast.
The night air slaps my face as he slips out the door. He doesn’t bother with the porch steps as he just jumps them, boots hitting the ground hard as he breaks into a run.
The movement jostles my aching body, and I bite down on a groan.
“Where…” I cough violently before forcing the rest out. “Where is everyone?”
“Running,” he pants.
And then I hear it.
Shouting. Doors slamming somewhere down the row of houses.
“Everyone, hurry the fuck up,” I hear Max yell.
Patch’s grip tightens around my legs.
“Hold on,” he mutters.
A sharp whip of sound cracks through the air.
Patch jerks sideways, slamming both of us into the side of the clubhouse we almost made it inside of. We hit the ground hard, my shoulder bouncing off the packed dirt as his body falls next to mine.
For one frozen second, my heart simply stops.
And suddenly, the quiet compound I’ve lived in for years feels like a battlefield.
Men pour out of the clubhouse like a swarm of hornets, guns already drawn as they fan out across the yard. Boots pound against gravel.
I push up on shaking arms.
“Patch.”
The moment I try to stand, another crack splits the night, and my leg collapses beneath me.
“Don’t fucking move,” Patch grunts beside me.
His voice is tight. Strained.
“Damnit all to hell, that fucking hurt.”
I blink at him.
Patch never curses.
The absurdity of it hits me, and a wheezing laugh escapes my throat even though everything around us screams danger.
“I think,” I cough, my voice barely there, “that’s the first time I’ve heard you swear.”
Patch glares at me through the darkness.
“This ain’t the time, Abby.”
“I got Abby. You get Patch,” Max says, suddenly appearing above us.
Before I can protest, his arms scoop me up like I weigh nothing.
“I got myself,” Patch snaps. “It’s just a graze.”
He jumps to his feet like a man who absolutely did not just take a bullet hit.
“Get her inside. Now.”
Another shout echoes from somewhere near the outer fence.
“Found them!” someone shouts.
“Don’t let them get away!” Crusher’s voice carries across the compound.
“Thank fuck.”
Max tightens his hold on me and starts running toward the clubhouse.
“We’re still heading to the bunker until we figure out what the hell is going on,” he calls back over his shoulder.
I groan weakly.
I really hate the bunker, even with my modified room Tank set up for me years ago.
“Take her straight to the med bay,” Patch orders, already moving beside us despite the way he’s holding his side. “And any others that are injured.”
“I’m not injured, Patch,” I rasp. “Just sick.”
Max glances down at me.
“Your leg is bleeding, honey.”
I blink.
“What?”
He shifts his grip so I can see.
The light catches something dark soaking through the leg of my sleep pants.
Blood.
A lot of it.
My stomach flips.
“Oh,” I whisper faintly.
That explains why my leg stopped working.
“I’ve been shot,” I say slowly. “Why don’t I feel anything?”
“Adrenaline,” Patch answers, not even looking surprised at this news. “Hate to tell you this, Abby, but it’s going to hurt like hell real soon.”
I nod, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the blood soaking through my pants.
It’s everywhere.
Way more than there should be.
My head starts to swim. The world tilts sideways like someone knocked the ground loose beneath me.
Max’s voice sounds farther away than it should.
“Patch, she’s going pale.”
“No shit,” Patch snaps. “Keep moving.”
I try to focus on something…anything…but all I can hear is the heavy thump-thump of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Everything feels fuzzy.
Too bright.
Too loud.
“I think…” I whisper weakly, my tongue thick in my mouth, “…I think I might…”
The sentence never finishes.
The last thing I see is Max’s face tightening with concern.
Then the darkness rushes in and swallows me whole.
***PATCH***
What a mess.
Blood soaks the tile floor of the bunker’s med room, smeared footprints and crimson handprints marking the chaos of the last hour. The air smells like iron, antiseptic, and panic. Way too many people are packed into a space that’s meant for maybe three.
“How’s your side, Doc?” Max asks from across the room.
I grunt instead of answering.
My side is fine. I wasn’t lying when I said it was a graze. Whatever sniper was aiming at us tonight either rushed the shot or just sucked at his job.
Lucky for me.
Not so lucky for Abby.
“Crusher’s outside with Maverick’s cousins,” Max continues. “They think the coast is clear, but I’d rather keep everyone down here until we do a full sweep.”
“Did they get the shooters?” I ask, tossing another wad of blood-soaked gauze into the trash bin.
“They did,” he growls. “Neither one of them’s talking. We got ’em tied up nice and pretty for when Bones gets back. He can usually carve out some answers.”
I nod once.
Bones has… methods.
“Are they on their way?” I ask.
“Yeah. Just talked to Spike. They’re landing in about an hour. Apparently, they watched the whole thing happen from New York.”
That gets my attention, and I raise a brow in question.
Max just shakes his head.
“Spike said he’d explain when he gets here.”
My gaze drops back to Abby.
She’s pale as hell, skin clammy, her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. I’ve got pressure packed into both sides of her thigh where the bullet passed through, but the bleeding only slowed…not stopped.
“How’s Abby?” Max asks quietly.
I exhale slowly.
“We need to get her to a hospital.”
Max stiffens.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” I continue. “And her body was already weak from the infection she’s fighting.”
“The bullet?”
“Through and through,” I say. “Clean entry, clean exit. Didn’t hit anything vital.”
His shoulders relax a fraction.
“But?” he asks.
I pull my gloves off, toss them, and grab a fresh pair.
“Some of the meds I had her on earlier had mild blood thinners in them,” I explain. “Anti-inflammatories and anticoagulants to help her lungs clear out the infection.”
Max’s jaw tightens in understanding.
“So she bled more than normal.”
“Exactly.”
I glance at the monitor we rigged up beside her.
Her pulse is still too fast.
“She needs a transfusion,” I say bluntly. “And that’s not something I can safely do down here.”
“And with snipers out there,” Max mutters, “we can’t exactly take her on a field trip to the ER.”
I look back at Abby’s pale face.
“We’re going to have to if we want her to live,” I say bluntly. “Soon.”
***TANK***
Maverick’s jet lands us as close to the compound as a landing strip will allow. It’s still a few miles out, but that’s nothing compared to the five hours it took to cross the damn country.
The second the wheels touch down, a vehicle is already waiting.
We pile in, and the driver floors it toward the compound.
The entire ride is silent except for the engine screaming down the road.
We got word an hour ago that ten of our men were killed before the snipers were located and locked up.
My jaw aches from how hard I’ve been grinding my teeth.
Luckily, Max and his family were already inside the compound when the attack started. A few of the guys had come by to hang out, so they were all near the clubhouse when the SOS hit.
Lila had been over at Riley’s, helping her cut Asher’s hair.
So they made it to the bunker without incident.
Eli wasn’t so lucky.
He’d been outside playing with one of the kids who came with their dad. Didn’t have his phone on him, so he never saw the signal.
When the first shot rang out, he grabbed the boy and ran straight for the clubhouse.
They both made it safely, but the kid’s father didn’t.
One of the ten.
Now Eli’s down in the bunker, passed out from the crash his body goes into when it’s pushed too far, and the boy’s mother is already on her way to pick him up.
The SUV tears through the last stretch of road, and the compound walls come into view.
Floodlights blaze across the yard, and I watch as men move everywhere. Everyone seems to have a task.
As we roll through the gate, an ambulance is pulling away, and my stomach drops.
But my mind only has one focus.
Get to the bunker…Get to my woman.
Patch told me she was out of it, much like Eli. But that’s all he would say.
The moment I started asking questions, he cut me off, saying he had more injured men to deal with and had to leave the bunker just to take my call.
Then he hung up.
I didn’t like it, but I didn’t call him back.
Because if Patch says he needs to focus, you let the man focus.
The SUV skids to a stop outside the gate, and I’m out and running before it even finishes opening.
My boots pound across the gravel as I sprint through the compound, then the clubhouse doors, down the basement stairs two at a time, and finally through the reinforced bunker door that stands wide open.
“Where’s Abigail?” I bark to anyone within earshot.
“She just…”
“PATCH!” I roar, already moving.
The bunker is massive…almost as wide as the property above it. Most of the space is storage. Food, water, weapons, fuel, supplies stacked high enough to keep us alive down here for a couple of years if we had to.
But there are also living quarters.
Rows of rooms carved into concrete.