40. Chapter 40
Chapter 40
Abby
I screamed his name. I screamed until my voice was gone and there was no more air to escape. Then I took a gasping breath, screaming again.
Gage was on the ground, blood spilling from half a dozen holes in his chest. His eyes were opened, but they stared blankly at the cracked roof.
Beside him Dallas fell to all fours, his gun skidding across the concrete as he vomited. The look in his eyes was wilder than before, his movement erratic.
“No,” he murmured. “No, I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want this. I thought—I didn’t want this!”
“Please,” I begged hoarsely, “help him. Please help him, Dallas.”
Dallas’s gaze flicked to mine, tormented, and he shook his head. “I can’t—I can’t—”
He stood, stumbling over Gage and nearly collapsing onto me. My skin prickled at his closeness, and I leaned my face away as his chest pressed against my face. There was a loud snap behind me, and my arms fell free.
My fingertips tingled, my wrists numb, but I didn’t let it stop me. Dallas was already fleeing, sprinting across the room and disappearing out the open door. The metal chair screeched as I dragged it behind my awkwardly bent legs, crawling toward Gage.
He flinched when I pressed my hand to his shoulder, crying out in pain. His wounds were excruciating. I could feel the echo of them down the bond.
The bond.
I reached for it, sending every jumbled, horrible emotion I was experiencing down it. As much as I wanted to send him happy thoughts, I couldn’t muster any. He was on the ground, bleeding to death, and I didn’t know what to do.
All I could think of was holding the bond tight, like applying pressure to a wound.
With my hands I applied real pressure, covering as many of the visible holes as I could. Gage began to writhe, his teeth gritting, eyes squeezing shut from the pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whispered against his face. “Please stay awake. Please.”
Footsteps thundered on metal, rumbling the floor. They were coming closer, and I had no way of telling who it was. I clambered over Gage, dragging the chair with me, nearly breaking my ankles to cover him with my upper body.
My rational brain knew there was no way I could protect him from a pack of shifter extremists—or even one of them—but I couldn’t reach that part of my mind. I was all panic, pure adrenaline, and I would protect him with my life.
Just like he protected me.
“Gage? Oh, fuck!” Levi peeled around the corner, a black gun still in his hands. He stuffed it into a holster on his hip, dropping to his knees and carefully lifting me off Gage. “Where’s Dallas? Where’s Dallas, Abby?”
“He ran! He shot Gage, and he ran!”
“Fuck, this is bad.” Levi prodded at one of the wounds, hissing as he yanked his hand away. “It’s silver. Fuck brother, it’s silver.”
Now Levi was all panic too. We weren’t going to save Gage if we were both panicking.
“It’s okay. He’s going to be okay. We need to get him to a hospital right now .”
“Not a hospital.” Mason was suddenly behind us, snapping the zip ties that were holding my ankles in place. “I know a place. We gotta hustle.”
Levi snapped out of it, hefting Gage off the floor and throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Gage was squirming, a horrible groaning sound building in his chest. Blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth.
Mason scooped me into his arm, flying down a flight of metal stairs at Levi’s heel. I couldn’t take in my surroundings, couldn’t hear or see or feel anything except pain.
“Keep looking at him. Don’t look down, Abby,” Mason murmured to me.
I did as he said, locking my eyes on Gage. Cool air rushed at us. Evening light spilled across my face, and I ducked away from it. Kai appeared in my peripherals, opening the door to a black SUV and helping Levi lift Gage inside.
Levi took his brother’s hand, squeezing it, and saying, “I will be so fucking pissed at you if you die on me. We were supposed to do this together, you asshole.” His voice broke and with it, so did my heart. “ I can’t do this without you .”
There was blood on Levi’s shirt. His blonde hair was matted with sweat, and his blue eyes glowed menacingly. With vicious intent he stormed over to me, taking me roughly by the shoulders and demanding, “Find the bond and hold it. Don’t let go of that bond.”
Then he raced around the side of the SUV, climbing into the driver’s seat. Mason sat passenger, typing rapidly into his phone.
Kai stuffed me into the back, where Gage was sprawled across the leather seats. His eyes were closed now, his breathing labored, and I had this horrible, sickening feeling that he wasn’t going to make it. We were so far from anywhere, and he wasn’t going to make it.
Hold the bond.
With a breath for courage, I lifted his head into my lap, finding that golden rope between us. It seemed thinner, less vibrant, and it took focus to mentally take hold of it.
Kai was crammed up against my side, his arm around me to steady me as Levi screeched away from the building. Distantly I was aware of Ezra, his sturdy frame taking up the entire trunk.
Hours seemed to pass before we were in the city. Levi barely slowed, skirting the speed limit. I held my breath, watching as Gage’s breathing became shallower.
Stay with me.
We came to an abrupt stop an in ally. There was a single green dumpster butted up against a small building. Mason climbed out first, stooping to stick his hand under the dumpster and retrieve a little metal box. There was a keypad on the box, but he appeared to know the code, tapping numbers until it slid open.
I leapt out of the car after Levi as he hoisted Gage up, clinging to the bond for dear life.
Mason unlocked a door in the back of the building, leading us down a dark staircase. We burst through a second door, fluorescent light blinding me. The scent of cleaning solutions hit me, and I took my first deep breath when I saw where we were.
“Singh!” Mason shouted.
An older man in green scrubs came racing from somewhere down the hall, a slender woman in oversized purple scrubs at his heels. They directed Levi into a tiny room, much too small for the amount of agitated shifters crowding into it.
The metal slab they laid Gage on didn’t look like an operating table. It reminded me of a morgue, and as his blood began draining down the side of the table, I had to swallow a scream.
Someone was talking to me, but I couldn’t register the words.
“I’ll pay you anything you fucking want. Just get that fucking silver out of him.”
The doctor’s face was grim. “It’s silver? I might be able to remove them, but with that many wounds…”
“Just do it!” Levi bellowed.
To his credit, the doctor didn’t flinch, giving swift and quiet instructions to his nurse.
I closed my eyes as they plugged an IV into Gage’s arm. I kept them tightly shut the entire time they prepared for operation, focusing on nothing but the weakening thrum of the bond. At some moments it felt like water in my hand, sluicing between my fingers, fading.
Then I would pull at it as fiercely as I could, imagining that it was knitting back together, weaving new, thicker braids until it was stronger and sturdier than it was before.
At some point they made us leave, both to keep the operating room sanitary and because Levi was a raging alpha, and Kai, Ezra, and Mason were doing their best not to follow suit.
Mason arranged a row of plastic chairs in the hall just outside the room. I finally forced Levi to sit in one, his wild pacing distracting me from my vigil. He propped his elbows on his knees, rubbing roughly at his face.
I snatched up one of his hands. They were shaking, his pulse beating so fast, and I knew this was one of those times where he wasn’t supposed to show weakness, but he wanted to. He needed to. Even an alpha couldn’t hold it together forever.
“He’s going to be okay,” I promised Levi softly.
“There were so many…”
“Levi, he’s going to be okay.” I chanted it quietly to myself for the next five hours, not daring to think anything else.
Three days ago, I wasn’t sure if I could live with Gage. Now, I knew that I couldn’t live without him.
Ezra was pressing a bottle of water to my lips, rousing me from my thoughts, when the door opened. The doctor stood in the doorway, a face mask pulled down to his chin. There were swollen rings under his bloodshot eyes, and his dark skin seemed grey under the harsh blue light.
“He’s alive,” he said reluctantly, “but I cannot promise he will stay that way.”