10. Cara #2
"Nope. Sleep later." He turns to Frankie.
"Hold this exactly here." She does, and I sit back on my heels with my hands covered in blood, Emily's blood, and for a second I'm not in this house at all.
I'm somewhere else, another room, another wound, men walking past while somebody cried and nobody came.
"Cara." Knox's voice pulls me back. "You with me?"
"Yes."
"Good. The ambulance is coming through the gates." He looks at me.
"Is she going to make it?" I ask, quietly.
His eyes meet mine and he doesn't lie to me. "I think so." Think, it’s not promise, but I take it anyway, because it's honest.
Outside the gunfire slows, then stops, and silence crashes over the house harder than the noise did. The radio on Sterling's shoulder crackles. "North secure." Then Vulture. "Rear clear. Two down. One fled east. Compound hold."
"Women's house has one GSW. Knox working," Sterling reports.
The pause on the other end is small but it's there. "Copy."
Everyone's alive. Everyone but Emily's untouched. We followed the plan, the system worked, and she still got hurt, and that truth sits in my chest and won't move, because safety was never going to mean perfection. I know that. I hate it anyway.
Sirens approach and half the room tenses again at the sound before their brains catch up to what it means.
"That's the ambulance," I say, loud enough for everyone to hear it, and people start to breathe.
Sterling goes to meet the paramedics at the door. Knox looks at me. "Cara, I need you to move back." I do, not because I want to, but because this part's his job now.
They move fast, checking vitals, asking questions, and when they lift the stretcher Emily's eyes find mine.
"Come with me,” she pleads with me.
My heart breaks clean in half. "I will."
"I'm riding with her," Knox says before I can.
Emily looks frightened. I go to the stretcher. "Knox stays with you. I'll be right behind."
"You promise?" Her eyes find mine.
I hesitate, because promises are the thing that got me here in the first place. Then I nod. "Yes. I can promise that." Because this one's mine to keep.
They take her outside. The women crowd the doorway but don't leave the house, that’s another rule followed. I grab my coat.
Frankie catches my hand. "Your hands."
I look down. They are covered in blood, so much blood. "I need to wash."
"You need to breathe first," Frankie says as she squeezes.
"I'm fine,” I answer too quickly.
She gives me a look that says she's not buying it, and she's right not to. "I'm not fine."
"That's better," she says, and walks me to the sink.
The kitchen's a mess, there’s broken glass everywhere, a bullet hole above the counter, and the sight of it makes my stomach turn again, someone came this close. The back door opens and I spin around, and Ice Pick steps in.
"Me," he says immediately, identification before anything else, and I breathe again.
He looks at my hands. "Emily?"
"Knox thinks she'll make it." I can’t think of anything else to say.
"Good." His eyes move around the wrecked kitchen and back to me. "We're going to need everyone to stay here until we clear the full property."
"I need to go to the hospital. I promised Emily.” I panic.
"You will. An escort will take you as soon as Vulture clears movement." He’s only following the rules.
I want to argue, it’s an old instinct where nobody tells me where I can go. Then I remember there's an active threat and this isn't the same fight.
"Okay," I agree.
He looks mildly surprised. "Okay?"
"Don't make me regret agreeing."
"Wasn't going to." He absolutely was.
Frankie hands me a towel and I dry my hands, though I can still feel the blood on them somehow. A radio crackles outside, there are voices everywhere, and a different energy than before. I know before anyone tells me that Falcon's here.
He steps into the living room, and I see him through the kitchen doorway, there’s blood on his shirt, glass cuts along his face, and relief hits so hard and so fast it nearly takes my legs out from under me. He's alive.
For one heartbeat I want to run to him. Then I understand he came through the front door, from outside, and my relief changes shape into something colder. He wasn't here. Falcon sees me and stops.
He doesn’t rush forward, grab me, or demand answers. His gaze moves over me instead, checking for injuries.
“Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No,” I answer.
His shoulders drop. That small sign of relief sends something hot and complicated through my chest.
“Emily was shot,” I tell him.
“I know,” Falcon replies, his voice breaking slightly.
My gaze drops to the blood covering him again. “What happened to you?”
“We were ambushed,” he answers.
“Where?” I ask.
Falcon hesitates, and I know the answer is going to hurt before he gives it.
“On the east side,” he admits.
My stomach drops. He was somewhere away from the compound.
“Why were you there?” I demand.
“We were collecting medication for Knox,” Falcon explains.
That’s legitimate, and for a moment, confusion interrupts the anger building inside me.
“Did you follow protocol?” I ask.
“At first,” he admits.
There it is.
“What does that mean?” I press.
Falcon looks down at the floor before forcing himself to meet my eyes. “We picked up a tail. The club ordered us to return using the western route, but Rachel needed the second part of her prescription.”
“And?” I ask.
“I went back for it,” he confesses.
“Falcon.” His name comes out as a warning.
“I had Hustler with me, and the club knew where we were,” he adds.
“But they told you not to go,” I remind him.
“Yes,” Falcon admits.
He doesn’t offer an excuse or try to soften what he did.
I hold his gaze. “What happened?”
"Two vehicles boxed us. I moved into an industrial area to keep civilians out of the line."
I stare at him. "And while you were doing that, they attacked here."
His face changes. "I know."
Emily's blood is still under my fingernails. I can see the thin red line the soap didn't get. "You left."
Falcon closes his eyes for a second. “Yeah.”
I’m not shouting or even accusing him. I’m only saying the truth and letting it sit between us.
“You left after everything we talked about,” I say.
“I thought I was protecting people,” Falcon replies.