Chapter 13 James
James
“I’m sorry,” she says desperately.
I hear her voice as the pain explodes across my chest, the force of the bullet knocking me backward as she sprints off at
full speed on a fractured ankle. A deafening hail of gunfire erupts almost instantaneously, sparking as it pings off steel
surfaces. I make out muted shouts and footfalls, the blur of bodies taking off after her. Others reach for me, steadying me,
but I can’t make sense of anything right away, not while the sound of my own blood rushes between my ears.
She shot me at close range.
I stagger forward, trying to bear my own weight as my vision briefly flares, cold sweat breaking out along the nape of my
neck. Blood seeps warm and fast through my shirt, snaking down my torso, then my arms. I watch, breathing hard, as it drips
off my fingers, splattering red across the white skin of my sneakers. I mutter a rough thank you to the soldiers bracing me, then release myself from their collective grip, taking a single moment to steady my head and assess
my situation:
The bullet is lodged in my shoulder, just below the clavicle. I’m guessing it shattered bone.
I can’t move my arm.
“Son of a bitch,” I hear Kenji hiss, then turn to see him half lying on the ground, applying pressure to a hemorrhaging wound in his thigh.
“Why does she always go for my legs?”
I blink, clearing the haze from my vision, my breathing stabilizing slowly. The pain recedes by degrees as my body tries to
heal itself around the bullet. This is going to need surgery.
Fuck.
She took out my dominant arm, my right arm, and I know she did it on purpose. The bullet is acting like a pin in the joint;
even if my body manages to heal itself, I won’t be able to move my shoulder properly until I get the foreign object out, and
this isn’t something I can do easily with my own hands.
I glance around the darkened hangar, picking out the shadowy shapes of workbenches and tool chests.
Maybe I can find a pair of pliers.
My heart picks up speed as my vitals gradually recover, hammering so hard now it’s making me dizzy.
The problem is, I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I’m still reeling, nearly shaking with pain and anger, and still, some
delusional part of me is thinking—
Wow.
Maybe I could hate her more if I admired her less.
Rosabelle will go down fighting with her last breath, and I can’t help but respect her for it. That’s the kind of girl who shows up, holds the line, keeps her promises, guards your secrets, destroys your enemies. That’s the kind of girl I want to go into battle with.
I close my eyes and, right away, I hear the echo of her voice.
I’m really trying to be a better person, but if even one of them hurts you I swear I’ll slaughter them all—
The memory of that moment floods a searing heat through my veins that nearly hurts, stealing my breath.
I swallow.
Fuck poetry, this girl is going to carve my heart out with a knife.
The truth is, I’d have done exactly the same thing in her position. I’d have done anything to get home to my family. No mercy;
no regrets. Maybe I’d be angrier if I didn’t know she was just trying to get back to her sister.
Before it’s too late.
I exhale, pushing aside a rising, paralyzing apprehension. Seven weeks. No one else understands the stakes. No one else knows
what I learned from her tonight—and if we let her escape, we might never know what the hell is coming.
The crash and clangor of metal echoes all around me, the general din of chaos unabated. I squint up around the moonlit hangar,
studying the few shafts of illumination slanting across its depths. Occasional shots ring out, boots hitting the ground.
If they’re working this hard, Rosabelle’s still running.
Of course she is.
I catch movement in my periphery, turning to see Kenji struggling to his feet, Zain and Allie helping him up.
Kenji and I exchange a single, loaded look.
“Really?” he says, his jaw tensing. “This is the first girl you decide to bring home to your family?”
I manage a grim smile. “Sorry. She gets nervous around strangers.”
Zain chokes out a laugh.
“You think this is funny?” Kenji says, turning to him. “Look at me. Look at him.” He nods at me. “You still think this is funny?”
“No, sir,” Zain says quickly.
I wince as I tweak my bad arm, testing it. Then I unzip my ruined jacket with my left hand, peeling it off with difficulty.
The windbreaker is shredded and still dripping blood, and I spend a moment staring at what’s left of it, realizing I was a
different person the day I bought it. I didn’t know what was coming for me when I’d pulled it off a hanger, trying it on with
a naive optimism. I’d gotten a discount for the small stain near the pocket, which I’d then carefully soaked and scrubbed
out by hand.
But now—
Now I let the ravaged article drop to the ground in a bloody, wet heap.
Kenji hisses in pain and I look up, watching him grimace as he adjusts his weight.
“Get him into recovery,” I say to Zain and Allie, who are still awaiting orders. “He’s going to pass out if he keeps bleeding like that.” And then I grab my ruined undershirt by the collar and tug hard, tearing the thin fabric badly off my body.
“Do you—” Allie glances at me, gasps, and looks away. “Oh—”
“What the hell are you doing?” Kenji asks.
“What are you waiting for?” I say, nodding at the soldiers. “Get him out of here. He’s going to start spiking a fever—”
“Did you just rip off your shirt?” Kenji asks, stunned. “Do you realize it’s still raining outside?”
“I need to do something with my arm.” I frown at him, then brace myself, breathing through the pain as I use the cotton to
fashion a crude sling for my shoulder. “I can’t run after her like this.”
“You’re not running anywhere,” Kenji says, his voice hardening. “You need to walk right into recovery. Let the unit round
her up—it shouldn’t take long—”
“No.” I lift my head to look at him. Rain sweeps into the hangar on a sudden gust of wind, the cold mist welcome on my overheated
skin. “Rosabelle is my problem.”
“Let her be someone else’s problem.”
“She’s already mine,” I say darkly. “And I don’t like sharing my problems with people.”
“Maybe we should go,” Allie says quietly to Kenji. “Get you over to the girls—”
“Shut up, Allie.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bro, did you take a blow to the head?” Kenji says to me now. “Why are you trying to get yourself killed?”
I tie off the sling with my teeth. “I’m not trying to get myself killed.”
“Oh, okay, so maybe you’ve just lost track of the fact that this is, like, the fourth time she’s tried to kill you.”
“She only tried to kill me once.”
“You mean that blood all over your jeans, that nasty gash in your side, that bullet in your shoulder—that’s just fashion?”
Now I’m getting irritated. “That was different.”
“James, you’re not invincible,” he says angrily. “Just because your body can heal itself doesn’t mean you can withstand anything.
You’re lucky to be alive right now. If that bullet hit you a few inches to the left you wouldn’t even be standing here—”
“Trust me,” I say, cutting him off. “If she’d wanted me to die, she wouldn’t have missed.”
“She’s not some perfect killing machine,” Kenji says, his voice rising in anger. “She’s an injured human being who makes mistakes
just like the rest of us—”
“Thanks for your concern. I love you, too.”
“Fuck you, don’t make fun of my feelings. You have no idea how many people care about you—”
“And I’m trying to protect those people,” I hit back. “I made this mess. I need to clean it up. I’m the only one who can handle
this situation. Think whatever you want about me, but I serve a purpose here. She won’t let anyone else get close to her.
I can bring her in—I can talk to her—”
“Bring her in?” Kenji laughs. “They’re out there shooting to kill, bro. Warner is done with her. He gave the orders a few minutes ago—”
“What?” Shock shatters through me. “When?”
“—she’s too much of a liability. And because of her, so are you. We tried to bring her in. She nearly killed us both. Warner’s
had enough and he wants her gone—”
“She wasn’t trying to kill us!”
“Nope. I’m not doing this.” He nods to Zain and Allie. “Let’s go. We’re done here—”
“Where the hell is he, anyway?” I ask, panic rising within me. “Why is Warner hiding?”
“He’s not hiding, jackass,” Kenji says, turning back. “He’s working. That man never stops working, and quite frankly, you
don’t appreciate him enough.”
“He’s making a mistake,” I say, chest heaving as a new pain radiates across my body. I turn in a circle, scanning the hangar
with a sudden urgency. “This is a mistake— She has information we need— You don’t— Jesus—”
“James, are you okay?” Kenji’s voice seems to echo in my head, reaching me from far away. “Because I’m really starting to
worry about you—”
Seriously, James, I’m worried about you—
In the frenzy, it’s Adam’s voice that surges to the surface of my mind.
—maybe it’s time you talk to someone about all this.
You don’t seem like yourself lately. And you’re still having nightmares every night?
It’s been over ten years. You still can’t hear Gigi and Roman cry without losing your mind.
What are you going to do when Juliette has that baby?
You know babies cry all the time, right?
Like, in the middle of the night? Sometimes for hours?
You live with them—you’re not going to be able to escape it.
Seriously, I think you should consider seeing a psychiatrist. I know this girl is beautiful but is that really enough?
I thought you were smarter than that. I’m worried there’s still a lot of unresolved trauma leading you to make poor and destructive choices—
For a second I close my eyes.
My heart is beating so hard I can’t hear Kenji anymore. I can’t hear anything but the sounds of my own breaths, loud in my
head. I can’t think beyond my own fury as frustration coils inside of me, heating my chest. I look into the middle distance,
the room unfocusing around me, lights in the hangar flaring suddenly too bright—
Lights.
I frown as I look up, reality striking me with the force of a thunderclap. Suddenly I’m back in my body, my feet firmly on
the ground, cold air whipping at my bare skin. Red beacon lights cut ominously through the dark, the rising rumble of a jet
engine slowly building into an unmistakable, earsplitting roar.
I suck in a breath, feel the ground vibrate beneath me.
Holy shit.