Chapter Sixteen
Noa
It was impossible to say which of us sprang into action first.
It was almost as if we moved as a unit, both rolling off of the bed toward the back of the house.
I landed beside Caymen as he reached up, grabbing the phones and the keys to put in his pockets, then thrusting the gun at me.
There was no time for it, but some part of me thrilled at his easy acknowledgment of my skills, of me being the best person to wield the only gun within reach.
I heard the creak of the floorboard, turned toward it, popped up enough to aim, and shot into the darkness.
Once.
Twice.
Caymen grabbed me, yanking me up to my feet and running us backward toward the door.
I aimed toward the shadow I couldn’t quite make out just as Caymen moved outside.
But I wasn’t the only one taking aim.
I knew at the sound of the small explosion that it was going to land, even as I tried to move out of the doorway.
The pain exploded through my arm.
“Fuck!” I yelled.
“Fuck,” Caymen hissed, reaching out, grabbing my good arm, and dragging me with him when shock and pain had me hesitating.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d been stabbed once. By my father, actually. Accidentally, of course. We’d been training. We both moved just the right amount of wrong. And pain.
But I’d never even been grazed before, let alone shot.
The pain was searing, blinding, overwhelming.
Even as my adrenaline kicked in, jerking like electric pulses through my veins, the pain was still right there, refusing to be denied.
We were both barefoot, both running over the uneven ground, rocks, twigs, and brambles biting into our soles. Branches slapped Caymen in the face before he threw an arm out to protect us from them as we tore through the darkened overgrowth.
There was none of the fun thrill from the last time we’d been running. No way to release the stress on our bodies afterward.
Just the pounding of our hearts, the slap of our steps, the short bursts of our breaths, and the sound of someone behind us.
Caymen’s hand tightened in mine, reassuring and coaxing at the same time as he pushed himself faster.
It took every bit of effort I possessed to try to keep pace, and even so, I was a solid three feet behind him at all times, feeling the pull of his hold as an ache in my shoulder.
But the pace was paying off as I heard the crunching behind us fall further and further behind.
Frustrated, pained tears flooded my eyes, poured down my cheeks, but I ignored the screaming of my thighs and pushed harder, faster.
Something sharp bit into my foot, making me stumble.
But Caymen’s hold kept me from falling forward, even as pain shot up my shoulder and neck at the sudden jerking sensation.
My lungs were full of flames.
My side cramped.
How were we going to get out of this?
We couldn’t run forever.
There was no main road anywhere nearby to flag down a car, no houses to run to for shelter.
We were wholly alone.
Surrounded by overgrowth. And, if we ran far enough, fields of farmland.
The hopelessness gained roots, started digging deep, spreading.
I fell back another step, then another.
My hand slid from his.
But before he could turn back and grab me again, my foot landed wrong.
The sharp jolt of pain shot through my ankle and up my calf, making a startled gasp escape me.
Then, as I tried to take another step forward, a cry.
“ Fuck ,” Caymen hissed.
He circled back, doing a two-second assessment in the dark, then grabbed my good arm as he turned his back to me.
He pulled hard, making my arm wrap around his chest.
Then he was reaching back, grabbing me behind my bad leg.
I jumped as hard as I could with the good one, then wrapped it around his waist as he broke into a run again. Albeit slower, with a whole other body to drag along with him.
I could feel the corded tension in his body, the way his chest was rising and falling too quickly from the strain.
“Put me down,” I demanded.
“No.”
“You can’t—”
“I can. Quiet. Don’t want to lead him to us.”
I tightened my hold on the gun.
“Listen,” Caymen panted a few minutes later. “In a minute, I’m going to need to put you down. And I need you to run like hell to the passenger side of the car and get in.”
“I can drive—”
“You fucked up your right leg,” he reminded me. “Are you ready?”
No.
Even being held, my ankle was throbbing. I could feel the tightening sensation as it swelled.
But I was reasonably sure it wasn’t actually broken.
Even if it was, that was just too bad.
It was run on it or possibly die.
There was no choice at all.
“Yeah.”
Just then, the overgrowth thinned.
And in the distance, I could see the way the moon glinted off the back windshield of my car.
Somehow, he’d managed to weave us through the wooded area in the dark and made it back toward the far end of the path where we’d left the car after the store.
He had to have a better sense of direction and sharper night vision than I did.
Caymen sucked in a deep breath.
I followed suit.
The tension rose in both our bodies. Because we knew how exposed we were about to be without any trees to hide behind.
And the faster and more quietly we could move, the better. If we even got a two-minute head start, that was something.
It was a chance.
“I’m not putting you down until we’re by the car.”
“Okay.”
I wasn’t going to object, not with how much my leg was hurting when I wasn’t even putting pressure on it. The fewer steps I had to take, the better.
“One. Two. Three.”
He took off like a shot.
He must have been hyping himself up because I felt like the world blurred he ran so fast.
But soon, too soon, he was releasing my arm. And I had no choice but to unhook my legs and drop down on them.
I could feel the tug in him, the desire to help me, but he couldn’t.
So he ran toward the driver’s side to unlock the door without bleeping the locks.
I sucked in a breath and ran.
The first step on my bum leg nearly took me to my knees.
More useless tears flooded as I bit my lip to keep from crying out.
One more step.
Two.
Three.
Then I was falling into the door Caymen pushed open from inside.
I fell into the seat with a cry.
Caymen’s face twisted up, like he felt the pain too.
But then something caught his attention in the windshield.
“Fuck.”
He reached to slam my door, turned over the car, and slammed it into reverse.
I glanced up, seeing the darkened figure.
My finger found the window button.
My arm was out before I could even think it through.
I didn’t shoot at the shadow. It was moving too quickly.
But what wasn’t moving? The car parked a few yards from ours.
I hit the windshield first, then tried for the tires, but Caymen had whipped us straight before I could blow one out.
“Belt, baby,” Caymen said, though he hadn’t done his own yet.
I reached to secure mine and as soon as I did, he did his own as he floored it down the unpaved street.
For just a moment, I sat there in stunned silence, just trying to breathe, to ease the vice grip on my lungs, to think past the throbbing sensation of my pulse in my chest and throat.
When Caymen slowed to make a turn around the first farm’s property, it was like the relief of the head start allowed my brain to finally process the pain.
My arm burned.
My ankle screamed.
My feet felt like they’d been sliced to ribbons.
A whimper escaped me.
Caymen’s hand moved out, going to the back of my neck and giving me a squeeze.
He had no comforting words.
What could he say?
That it was okay?
It wasn’t.
That we were safe?
Who was to say?
But the touch was enough, grounding me, keeping the panic from overwhelming me.
Within a few strategically deep breaths, I felt like I could think past the pain again.
Feeling the shift, Caymen released me to reach for his pocket, pulling out his phone, and—judging by how quickly he brought the phone—hit one of his emergency contacts.
“Seeley,” he said after a second, balancing the phone between his shoulder and ear so he had both hands on the wheel when he took another turn.
“I need Ama. Yeah. No. Not me. Yeah. She’s shot.
And something’s wrong with her ankle. Yeah.
Okay. We’ll be there in… forty, give or take. No, no tail so far. Okay. Thanks.”
He reached for the phone, dropping it onto my lap.
“Ama is the doctor, right?” I asked, flipping through the mental files I had of his brothers and their women.
“Yeah. She runs a clinic in Seeley, Cato, and Levee’s old neighborhood. We’re gonna meet them there.”
“At this hour?”
“Trust me, baby, it’s not Ama’s first middle-of-the-night shooting. You okay?”
“No. But yes. What the fuck?”
“I know,” he agreed. “I’m gonna go over this car again to make sure Dixon didn’t miss a tracker. It makes no sense how he found us again.”
“We should just ditch it. Doesn’t your club have another car we can use?”
“Yeah. Might be the smart bet. After we get you taken care of.”
He didn’t take his foot off the gas until we finally made it to the main drag, forcing him to slow down if he didn’t want to risk getting pulled over.
When we hit a traffic signal, he flicked on the interior light and leaned over to inspect my arm.
“How bad is it?”
“Looks like it lodged in some fat or muscle. Not as deep as I’d been worried about.”
“Good.”
“How’s the foot?”
“I think it’s my ankle. And I’m not sure. It doesn’t feel good. But even a sprain can be dramatic sometimes.”
“Ama will figure it out.”
In my lap, his phone started vibrating.
“Huck,” I told him.
“Can you answer on speaker?”
I hit the button and heard male voices staticky in the background.
“Huck,” Caymen greeted.
“What the fuck happened?”
“We were sleeping and someone kicked the door in.” No preamble, right to the facts. “We hit the floor and scrambled to the door. Noa took a few shots at him. He took one at her. Got her in the arm.”
“Fuck.”
“It’s not too bad. We took off into the woods. Barefoot. Noa landed wrong and fucked up her ankle. Other than that, we’re alright. Got away. Noa shot out the back windshield of his car as we tore out.”
“I figured you could put feelers out to window repair shops,” I said. “Or that Arty can find a car on cameras with no back window.”
“That’s good, babe. You okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Even if it felt like each of my injuries currently had its own pulse.
“We’ll get you patched up. You don’t have a tail right now?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. Babe?”
“No. I haven’t seen anyone.”
“Good. Just to be safe, as soon as you get to the clinic, I’m gonna have Seeley drive your car and ditch it for the time being.”
“Yeah, we were talking about that. It makes no sense that someone was able to find us at the safe house.”
“That’s what I’m thinking too. How far are you out?”
“About fifteen? Traffic is light.”
“Okay. We’ll talk at the clinic.”
“Got it.”
I hung up the call and Caymen reached over, giving my thigh a squeeze, then just staying there for the rest of the drive.
“Don’t get out,” Caymen demanded when we pulled up out front to find several of the bikers already waiting. “I’ll get you.”
With that, he climbed out, leaving the engine running.
“Give me your shoes,” he demanded, looking at his brother.
Dixon didn’t even hesitate, just took off his shoes and stood there in his socks.
I hadn’t even thought about Caymen’s feet.
Of course, they were all chewed up.
We’d both been barefoot. And he’d been unfortunate enough to have the added weight of me against the ground when he picked me up.
I didn’t even ask him if he was alright.
Those were still the thoughts on my mind when he slipped into his brother’s shoes and came to my door to get me.
“You hurt your feet too.”
“They’re fine.”
“Not if they’re anything like mine, they’re not.”
“Just a few scratches. Scoot over.”
“Let someone else carry me.”
“Absolutely fucking not.”
With that, he pulled me into his arms and carried me into the clinic.