Chapter 9
If you inch up at that red light, no matter what car I’m in, you just locked in a race.
— Quinn to Quaid
QUINN
“ Who was that?” I growled.
“ Wrong number,” Elliette hung the phone up.
I frowned. “ You didn’t even answer it,” I pointed out. “ And why are you answering my phone anyway?”
She shrugged. “ Habit I guess. I hear a phone ring, I answer it.”
I held out my hand for the cordless phone, then put it back on the charger next to the back door.
“ Why are you here now?” I wondered. “ I have to leave for work in…
My phone vibrated on the counter, drawing my attention.
I frowned at it.
“ That’s weird,” I said as I walked to it. “ Why is it on silent?”
I never, ever had it on silent.
When you were on call like I was, twenty-four-seven, you didn’t have the luxury of turning your phone to silent.
I answered the phone, frowning when I saw a notification for seven missed calls on top of that.
My heart utterly leapt inside my chest, but I ignored the stupid organ and answered.
“ What’s up, Boseman ?” I said into the phone, leaning my hips against the counter.
There was a long stretch of silence as I heard voices urgently telling someone to do something, and my back went ramrod straight.
“ Uh ,” he hesitated. “ There’s a gang shooting going on at the old movie theater down by the interstate. I have reports that there are mass casualties. Ten different shooters. And I also have a bird’s eye view of the theater. Owner put up cameras. I’m looking at what I think is your girl lying on the ground in the acoustics room.”
I stiffened impossibly further, then turned my gaze toward Elliette .
She had the fuckin’ nerve to look bashful. “ I’ll be there in five.”
Elliette held her hand up to stop me, but I brushed past it as I all but ran to my bedroom to grab my gun and shoes.
“ What are you doing?” she asked. “ I thought we were going to watch the game?”
I snarled at her. “ Get the fuck out of my house. And the next time she calls, or talks to you in some way wanting me, you make damn sure she gets to talk to or see me. This is your only warning.”
When I got out to my truck, her car was speeding away from my apartment.
The drive took me three minutes max.
When I got there, I saw a bunch of neon green and blue on one curb, and black and yellow on the other.
All of them were on their bellies with their faces on the asphalt, looking pissed as hell.
Half of them looked like they were kids.
Goddammit .
My brain, however, didn’t focus on my job.
No , it wanted one thing, and one thing only.
Shayne .
I looked around for the incident commander, finding him talking to Boseman .
“ Shayne Rodriguez ,” I blurted out. “ Where is she?”
Boseman and the incident commander pointed, and I was sprinting toward the ambulance where the shock of black hair was hanging out of the back of it, hanging stick straight, right off the end of a bench.
My heart rate soared as I watched her turn toward me and stare.
Alive .
She was alive.
“ Shayne ,” I breathed when I got to her.
She was hanging off one of the benches in the ambulance while another man took up the middle on the gurney.
A paramedic was bandaging up Shayne’s wound.
“ You’ll need to go get this checked out,” the paramedic was saying to her. “ You don’t need stitches. You’ll need antibiotics, though. You’re filthy. Who the fuck knows what you were crawling around in.”
My stomach pitched again.
Crawling .
God , she must’ve been so scared.
I reached for her hair, unable to stop myself, but she jerked herself away.
“ Don’t touch me,” she ordered.
I froze, hand mid-air, and stared.
She sat up, pulled her leggings up high over the wound, then reached for something on the ground.
She caught up the material of what looked like a sweatshirt, then tossed it to me.
“ Here ,” she snapped. “ I’m not going to need this anymore.”
Then she stood up, obviously unfazed from having just been fucking shot, and hopped down onto the ground beside me.
I reached for her again, but she yanked her arm away before I could touch her.
“ I called you,” she whispered, sounding hurt that I hadn’t answered. “ I called you, and called you, and called you.”
And I hadn’t answered.
I closed my eyes and said, “ I’m sorry. I was showering. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She sniffed. “ Well , I’m sure Elliette can tell you that I was calling, seeing as she answered twice, and hung up on me once.”
I stiffened.
“ She didn’t…”
“ She fucking did,” she disagreed before I could finish.
I was going to say ‘she didn’t tell me you called.’
I wasn’t about to defend her.
Not with something this serious.
However , before I could say anything more, she started to walk away.
“ Shayne , please wait,” I pleaded.
The tone in my voice, the desperate need that was practically pouring out of every syllable, had her coming to a halt. She didn’t turn, though.
“ This time, Quinn ,” she insisted with a seriousness I’d never heard before, “ I need you to stay the hell away from me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, to tell her that everything would be okay, but she held up her hand. “ It’s time I focus on myself for once.”
Without another word, she turned around and disappeared into the crowd of people.