Chapter 7 #3
The crack of the gunshot made me jump, my eyes popping open. There was no pain. Why was?—
I stared stupidly at Wolf, clutching his chest, blood spilling over his fingers. His eyes were looking somewhere over my shoulder at the trees, but as he started to tip, he met my horrified gaze.
“Emmy, run!” he gasped.
I sucked in a panicked breath, and it came out as a scream.
I grabbed Wolf as he fell, trying to slow his descent.
He hit the ground on his back with a pained cry, but I was already moving.
I ripped his jacket and shirt open as fast as I could and pried his hands away from the wound, replacing them with my own.
Warm blood spilled over my frozen fingers as I sent my healing power flowing into him so quickly it hurt.
He tried to grasp my wrist with his bloodied hand, his lips forming words I didn’t hear because chaos exploded around us.
Shouts came from behind us, and the door opened, but bullets slammed into the cabin from the trees. I crouched low over my brother as bullets whistled past us, trying my best to shield him. I could feel my powers and his death racing each other. The bullet had gone right through his heart.
“No!” I was sobbing. “No! No, Wolf, please!”
He stared at me, his eyes wide. The tears falling from my eyes were splashing onto my bloody hands.
“Bones!” someone roared, and I glanced up.
Mac stood at the treeline, peering around a tree. I had just enough time to meet his furious gaze before he disappeared back behind his cover as bullets sent pieces of bark flying.
I twisted to look back at the cabin. Wolf’s crew were firing from the windows and door.
“Stop!” I screamed, but my voice was lost in the noise.
Tuck stepped onto the porch, holding a fucking huge gun.
He planted his feet, and it roared to life, a deafening onslaught of noise.
His entire body shuddered with the recoil, but he absorbed it with experienced control as the gun spit casings out like metallic rain.
I whipped my head toward the trees, watching in horror as the barrage tore giant chunks from the trees that sheltered my crew.
Movement from the cabin caught my attention again, and under cover of the machine gun, Lee came charging toward me and Wolf.
He came within a few feet when his body jerked, blood spraying across the snow, and he fell face-down.
I couldn’t tell where exactly he’d been hit, but the idiot wasn’t even wearing a bulletproof vest. The devastation I felt took me by surprise, and I screamed again and again, tears pouring down my face as I crouched over my brother, trying my best to focus on healing him.
Lee turned his head and met my eyes, and his teeth gritted in pain as he began trying to drag himself toward me.
“Stop!” I screamed at him. “Stay there!”
Tuck faltered for a second as a bullet hit him in the arm, but he kept shooting.
I turned to the trees again just in time to see Raven go down.
Jax’s blond head popped up as he ran toward her, and he immediately got picked off and went down.
My throat burned from the force of my screams, but they were lost in all the noise.
This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a nightmare.
The machine gun finally ran out of bullets, and Tuck let out a cry and went down sideways, hitting the porch with a thud that sent spent casings flying.
“Bones!”
My heart seized in my chest at the sight of Griz charging toward me from the trees. He wore tactical gear and held a large rifle in his hands. My eyes widened in panic.
“No!” I shrieked at him. “Griz?—”
“Bones, run!” he shouted over me. “Get up?—”
A bullet hit him in the shoulder, going through the narrow space of the bulletproof vest with terrifying precision. He grabbed at the wound as he went down on his knees, but a second shot went through his neck, and he fell.
Everything was happening so fast, and I was screaming so hard I felt like I was ripping myself apart. I looked back at the trees to see Mac stepping out—rifle held ready—but he paused as his eyes met mine again, brow creasing like he was confused.
“Mac, no!” I screamed, but a gunshot echoed, and he stumbled backward and fell out of sight.
“NO!” My cry tore something free, and blinding light exploded from my body like a wildfire.
I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel them—all the injured bodies dying in the snow.
I heard multiple voices swearing and shouting in confusion and fear as my power raced across the ground, gobbling them up and encompassing them.
The current flowing through me felt wild and powerful, and Mac’s words flashed through my mind, you’re strong enough to cut a path through mountain rock and wild enough to wash everythin’ away when you rage.
For the first time, I felt like that river Mac had described. I was every heartbeat and every breath. I was blood and marrow and bone. I was life.
Muscles knit back together, bullets emerged from bloody wounds, and organs wove themselves whole again.
All of them were simultaneously healing faster than I’d ever healed one person before in my life.
I peered down and could just make out Wolf’s features in the bright light.
His eyes were wide with shock as he stared up at me.
The pain came a second later—swift and sharp—tearing my insides until tears streamed down my face, and I gasped in pained sobs; but I held it.
I held it until that warmth inside of me sputtered, and the blinding light vanished like a silent thunderclap.
Icy cold roared through my veins, and I squinted, trying to focus through the pain that wasn’t fading.
In the sudden silence, it sounded like my heart was pounding violently in my ears.
“Don’t hurt them!” I gasped, and then the ground rushed up to meet me.