Chapter 20 #2
Connor pushes to his feet. "Fuck. We have to get him to the hospital. Even if we called for a helicopter, by the time it came from Asheville and returned, we could have gotten him there faster."
I glance over my shoulder at him, tears blurring my vision.
He scans the barn in the darkness. "Fuck. I don't know if there's anyone else out there. How many men he might have brought with him.” Scrubbing his hands over his face, he turns back to me. “If we try to carry Liam out to the truck, we wouldn't be hard targets for people like them.”
Panic laces his words, but he’s trying to tamp it down.
For both our sakes.
I press as hard as I can on the wound in Liam’s shoulder, desperate to stem the bleeding. "What do we do?"
Connor grabs his shotgun from the floor where he dropped it to grab the axe now embedded into Lorell’s back. "Stay with him. Keep pressure on that."
“Where are you going?”
His hard, dark eyes meet mine, the unease in them making them almost onyx. “I’m going to get the keys for Liam’s truck from his cabin, then get it over here.”
Shit.
That means going out where anyone could be waiting, concealed in the trees, for one of us to appear to take us out.
But we don’t have any other options.
Not if we have any chance of saving Liam’s life.
He’s already lost so much blood.
The dark crimson is smeared across the axe handle, along the wall where he was propped up, and all over the floor, currently pooling under him.
It coats my hands where I press into the wound, which seems to be doing very little to help the situation.
We have to hurry.
“Be careful."
Connor kicks the axe over to me without comment, but he doesn’t have to explain.
If anyone comes in, it will be the only way I have to defend myself.
He disappears out the back door closest to the cabin, leaving me with Liam bleeding and unconscious in my hands.
Gizmo nudges me, whimpering softly.
He’s hurt, too.
The way Lorell flung him across the barn…
“I’m so sorry, buddy.” Tears stream down my face. "We’ll get you to the vet, too. You’ll be okay. He'll be okay. Everyone will be okay…"
Everyone will be okay…
Everyone will be okay…
That's what I have to keep telling myself because the alternative isn't possible.
I can't lose him.
He can't die because of me, because of my mistake.
He can't die because he loved me.
The only person in the world who ever did…and now he's paying for it.
A sob tears from my chest, my tears coming harder, my breaths hitching more and more as the seconds tick by, then minutes that feel like hours until the sound of a truck hits my ears.
And it’s the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.
It means there’s a glimmer of hope.
"You hear that, Liam? It's Connor.” I brush a kiss across his lips, hoping he can hear me, hoping he knows that I'm here with him. “You're going to be okay."
You have to be.
Heavy footsteps approach, and Connor reappears. He holds out the shotgun. "Take this while I carry him."
My hands tremble, and I nod, reluctant to take the pressure off his wound, but I grab the gun and step back. Connor squats and lifts Liam's limp body from the floor.
I have to look away from all the blood that pooled underneath him, the blood smeared all across the space where he fought with Lorell.
My stomach turns, and I swallow back the bile rising in my throat.
Connor situates Liam in his arms, straining under his weight, and moves toward the main barn door. He locks eyes with me as we reach the sliver of moonlight streaming in. "Shoot anything that moves out there. You understand me?"
I nod, using the back of my hand to wipe away the tears quickly so I can see through them enough to actually aim if I have to. Despite my entire body shaking, my palms being slick with blood, I raise it and keep it steady with my finger resting just above the trigger.
To protect Liam.
To protect the McBrides.
To protect myself…
I’ll pull it without even blinking.
Giz trots along with us, limping slightly but keeping up.
Connor peers around the edge of the door. The truck sits only a few feet away, engine running, but the lights are off so as not to draw more unwanted attention this direction.
"I'm going to get him into the back. You climb in with him."
I nod, readying myself to move quickly.
"On the count of three.” Connor breathes in deeply. “One. Two. Three."
Those three seconds feel like an eternity when I know each one is one more Liam’s life hangs in the balance. Every one is wasted time we could be using to get him to someone who can help him. It’s time the wound continues to bleed without any way to stop it.
But then we move with hurried footsteps to the truck.
I shift the shotgun to my left hand to open the back door for Connor.
The interior lights remain off—probably because Connor was smart enough to hit that little button that ensures they won’t come on when the doors open. Something that would give away our position as much as the sound of the engine does.
Connor struggles to get Liam in. He’s nothing but dead weight—and a lot of it. His bulky muscle, well-earned through hard manual labor around the mountain his entire life isn’t doing any good right now.
And Liam doesn't react at all to the movement, to Connor jostling him to try to get him arranged, spread across the crew cab seat.
I try not to think about the fact that no reaction means he’s so far gone that he doesn’t feel it.
A blessing and a bad sign…
But I have to focus on what I’m supposed to be doing.
I scan the darkness around us. My gaze flicks toward the faint light, barely visible, further down on the homestead, coming from the single bulb that hangs above the porch on Killian's cabin. "What about Killian and Willow, the baby?"
Connor takes the shotgun from me and motions for me to climb in the backseat with Liam. "Don't worry about them. Killian can handle it."
That man can handle just about anything.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind about that.
It doesn’t stop the worry though, the feeling like I might never see any of them again.
I bite my lip to keep another sob from slipping out, then slide in and settle Liam's head on my lap. Connor shuts the door and races around to the front. He scoops up Giz and sets him on the passenger seat as he closes his door.
Giz immediately turns and looks over the center console at us, his eyes darting between me and Liam.
He knows what's happening.
Somehow he does.
I can see the intelligence in his eyes.
He’s always been my protector, my constant companion, and now he loves Liam as much as I do. He leaped on Lorell like a damn military attack dog instead of the tiny, pudgy couch potato he usually is. He went full Gizmo to protect his friend. And now he feels Liam’s pain and my own.
I don’t think it’s possible to love this dog any more than I do in this moment…
As Connor throws the truck into drive and tears down the narrow gravel road, I glance on the floor and find a duffel bag.
Leaning down, I rummage through it and grab a stack of clean clothes Liam must keep back here.
Pressing the fabric over Liam’s wound, I pray it will slow the blood loss enough to keep him alive.
Please, God…
I can’t lose him.
It isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve prayed.
I did it so many times as a child, begging to be adopted, begging to be placed with one of the incredible foster families I knew were out there, but my prayers just seemed to float off into the ether.
Unanswered.
Maybe unheard.
I wasn’t even sure I believed in God until I walked into McBride Mountain and saw something only a divine hand could have created.
Now, I need Him to hear me.
I need this one thing from Him.
As we finally reach Killian's cabin and the main clearing, the front door opens and he steps out with his shotgun.
Connor opens his window and slows, coming to a stop at the bottom of the porch steps. "We have to get Liam to the hospital."
Killian's eyes flare wide for a second, his brow furrowing. "Is he…?"
The middle McBride brother gives a little shake of his head and Killian's jaw hardens.
Connor glances through the windows at what’s visible of the homestead from here. “There may be more of them."
Killian nods. "I already called the sheriff. He's on his way.”
Which means we'll probably cross paths with him somewhere on the narrow mountain road.
Connor inclines his head. “Stay safe."
Killian glances into the backseat, his eyes meeting mine, and he simply gives me a tight smile and nods before he disappears back into the cabin. The door hasn’t even closed when Connor takes off again, kicking up gravel with the spinning tires.
The dense trees soon swallow us up, the night that was already so dark becoming impenetrable.
We drive a minute or two in pitch black. No headlights. Nothing to guide the way down the long, narrow, winding road that will take us to the base of the mountain.
But I remember what Liam told me the night he brought me up here, that he could drive this road with his eyes closed.
Connor can no doubt do the same.
Still, I hold my breath until, a few miles from the homestead.
He flicks the lights on, illuminating the steep decline through the forest that offers our only potential salvation. But even once we get to the bottom, it's still hours to the nearest major hospital.
Too much time we don't have.
Too much time that Liam might not have.
I bury my face against his, the rough scrape of his growing beard against my cheek somehow reassuring. All I want is his familiar scent that always soothes me, but it's mingled now with the tangy scent of blood.
His.
"I'm so sorry.” My sob tears through the cab of the truck. “This is all my fault."
"Lucky…"
I glance up at Connor's voice, and he peeks over his shoulder at me before focusing on the drive. "It isn't. Someone tipped them off."
I swallow another sob lodged in my throat. "It was Snow."
His head whips back toward me again briefly. "What?"
"Lorell said Snow was on their payroll.” I shake my head, the events of the night coming in violent flashes of information my brain doesn’t want to fully process.
“I don't know what happened to Attorney Truman, but Snow told them where I was, probably told them everything that I confessed this morning and that I could identify him. "
"Fuck." Connor slams his hand against the steering wheel. "That fucker is as good as dead."
The promise in his voice that they'll handle the man responsible for sending that death squad after us should ease some of my fears, but it doesn't.
Not when Liam's life hangs in the balance.
Not when I could lose the one thing I've always wanted and finally have.
Not when I might lose him.