Chapter 13
Aidan
Pain drags me back first.
It is bright behind my eyes and sharp through my side and dull in the back of my skull, where I must have hit something on the way down. I open my eyes to a sunny morning and dewy grass inches from my face.
For one second, I have no idea where the fuck I am.
Then the warehouse crashes back in. Maeve. Briggs on the floor. Sirens.
I push up too fast, and the world tilts. A hand catches my chest and shoves me back down.
“Don’t be a prick,” Callan says.
“I’m awake, not dead.”
“Debatable.”
I turn my head. He is sitting beside me against a thick tree trunk at the edge of some overgrown field, gun still in his hand. His face is the kind of blank that has a body count.
“How long?” I ask.
“Too fucking long. You need a hospital.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“I know. Just putting it out there so you can’t blame me when you die.”
“Nice. I know a place,” I say, relinquishing my pride in favour of staying alive. “A vet.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m not fucking surprised by this.”
My hand goes to my side. Fresh bandage. Tighter than before. Blood, but less of it. “You patch me up?”
“Did my best. Don’t complain.”
“I was going to say thank you, cunt.”
He gives me a flat look. “Where is this vet, seeing as we are stranded without transport in the middle of some farmer’s field, surrounded by cows?”
I look around. “I don’t see any cows.”
“They took one look at you and moved on.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, but it lacks conviction.
Callan pushes to his feet and offers me nothing, which is fair. I get one hand into the grass and force myself upright. Pain bites deep enough to make my vision pulse, but I stay there.
“Looks like it hurts.”
“It’s fine.”
The field stretches out in front of us, wet with morning, bordered by hedges and a narrow lane beyond them. A few low farm buildings sit in the distance. My shirt is stiff with blood. My side feels hot and wrong. My head is not much better.
Callan watches me do a quick inventory and says, “You’re swaying.”
“I’m vertical. That counts.”
“Barely.”
I dig my phone out of my pocket. Cracked screen. Dead. “Of course.”
“Mine’s gone. Think I lost it in the van.”
“Fabulous. So they have something on us.”
He shrugs. “It was never registered to me.” He glances towards the lane. “How far’s this vet?”
“Depends where we are.”
“About two miles away from the warehouse. No idea which way.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Then, I have no idea.”
“So, we walk until we find a landmark.”
I nod and grit my teeth, taking a step forward and favouring my side.
The first few steps are a fucking joke.
My body objects to every one of them. Wet grass drags at my boots. My side burns under the bandage. The back of my skull throbs in time with my pulse. Callan keeps pace beside me in silence, which is his version of concern when he is too wound up to fake anything softer.
We cut through the field towards the hedge.
By the time we reach it, I’m breathing harder than I want to be. Callan looks at me once, takes in whatever he sees, and says, “If you fall over again, I’m leaving you for the crows.”
“Bit dramatic. There aren’t any crows.”
“There will be.”
I part the hedge with one hand and step through onto a narrow lane lined with mud, nettles, and stone walls that have been standing longer than our entire fucked-up family line. Morning has fully broken. Birdsong cuts through the air. It feels offensive.
I turn slowly, scanning both directions.
Nothing. No traffic. No people. No sign for where the hell we are.
“Pick,” Callan says.
“Left.”
“Based on?”
“Instinct.”
We head left.
“Do I even want to know where Jack is?” I ask after about thirty seconds, which feels like an hour.
Callan inhales, deeply pissed off. “He fucked off through the back when the sirens came. Same as Maeve.”
“Convenient.”
“I know.”
“And while you know you should’ve stuck with him, you dragged me out of there instead.”
He cuts me a look. “Don’t make it weird.”
I laugh, then it turns into a wince. “Too late.”
We keep moving down the lane. The sun keeps rising like the morning has any right to be ordinary after last night. I hate it on principle.
“What happened after I went down?” I ask.
“You collapsed. I got you out. Sirens got close. Maeve disappeared. Jack disappeared. I dragged your heavy arse over a fence and through about half a county.”
“You said about two miles.”
“Felt like half a county,” he mumbles.
My legs are already turning to lead. I keep moving because stopping feels too close to giving in, and I don’t have the luxury. Not with Maeve and Jack both loose, carrying enough lies between them to drown us all.
We round a bend and finally get something useful. A weathered sign nailed to a post points towards a town I recognise.
“Right,” I say, relief cutting through the pain for half a second. “I know where we are.”
Callan follows my line of sight. “And the vet?”
“Other side of the town. Bit of a walk.”
His expression doesn’t change. “You live, then.”
“Touching.”
We keep going.
The lane spills onto a wider road a few minutes later. A tractor goes past in the distance and doesn’t even slow. Probably for the best. We look like the opening act to a murder trial. Blood on my shirt. Mud halfway up both of us. Callan with a gun tucked out of sight, but not by much.
“You need a story,” he says.
“I got drunk and fell over.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“I got drunk and fell over near someone with poor aim.”
That nearly gets a reaction out of him. Nearly.
We cut through the edge of the town, keeping our heads down. A post office. Terraced houses. A shut-down pub. The normality of it all feels obscene. Somewhere nearby, someone is probably making tea and bitching about the weather while my entire body feels like it’s on fire.
“She won’t ask questions.”
Callan looks at me. “Who won’t?”
“The vet. Lila.”
He breathes in and out. “Lila the vet. An old girlfriend?”
I give him a disgusted stare. “No. Old friend.”
“You hope.”
“Shut the fuck up, arsehole.”
He does. Mercifully.
By the time we reach the surgery, I am held together by stubbornness and not much else.
It sits at the end of a side street behind a faded green sign with a cartoon spaniel on it and flower boxes that make the whole place look far more wholesome than anything in my life has a right to touch. The front shutters are half up. A light is on inside.
“She’s open,” Callan says in surprise.
“Lucky for me.”
I push through the gate and head for the side entrance instead of the front. Less public.
I bang on the side door.
Nothing.
I bang again, harder this time.
Locks click. The door opens a few inches, chain still on, and one sharp brown eye appears through the gap.
Lila sees me and swears. “Aidan.”
“Morning.”
She shuts the door, undoes the chain, and yanks it open. Mid-thirties, with blonde hair scraped back, wearing a navy scrub top. Her tired eyes that miss nothing. She takes in the blood, the dirt, Callan at my side, and her mouth hardens.
“Inside,” she says.
I don’t waste energy arguing. That alone tells her how bad it is.
She steps back to let us in, then locks the door behind us with quick, efficient movements.
The corridor smells faintly of disinfectant and wet dog, and if I weren’t half fucked already, I’d probably laugh at the fact that this is where I end up every time I get injured badly enough to need stitching but not badly enough to risk a hospital.
Lila points at a treatment room, her hand going under my elbow. “Table.”
“I can walk.”
“Lovely. Do it faster.”
Callan makes a quiet noise that might be amusement if he were a normal person. He isn’t, so I ignore it and head for the room. Stainless steel surfaces. Cupboards. A sink. A lamp over the narrow table. It’s too bright.
Lila shuts the door behind us and doesn’t even look at Callan. She is focused on me and my injury. “Get on the table.”
I haul myself up onto it with a muttered curse.
Lila is already pulling on gloves. “Shirt off.”
“Sorry, love. I’m taken.”
Her stare could strip paint. “Does she know you’re here, half-dead?”
“She knows I’m half-dead. She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Lila smirks. “The infallible Aidan Deveaux admitting he’s hurt. I’ll take a picture to prove it in five years.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I grumble and peel the shirt away from my side. I hiss when the fabric pulls at the bandage. Blood has glued half of it to me. Callan steps in without being asked and cuts the rest of the shirt away with a pair of scissors he finds on the tray.
Lila glances at him then. “Useful.”
“He has hidden depths,” I say.
Cold liquid hits the wound. Fire follows it, making me grunt.
Lila peels the dressing back. “Who did this one?”
“Someone rude.”
She gives me another look. “Bullet?”
“Graze.”
“Lucky you.”
“Story of my life.”
“It never is with you.” She checks the wound properly, fingers firm and clinical. “This needs cleaning and stitching where it’s torn. It’s not life-threatening if treated.”
“Thought you might say that. See?” I say to Callan. “All good.”
Lila snorts. “You are not all good. You are upright because your stubbornness keeps you alive.”
“Better than dying.”
She points at Callan. “You. Hold him still if he starts being dramatic.”
Callan plants himself near my shoulder. “Happily.”
Lila reaches for a syringe. “Local anaesthetic.”
I look at it, then at her. “Absolutely not.”
Her brows lift. “You got shot, but this is the line?”
“I hate needles when I’m conscious.”
“That is one of the stupidest things you’ve ever said to me, and that list is impressive.” Then she puts the needle in anyway.
“Fuck,” I hiss.
Lila works fast. She cleans the tear at the edge of the graze, flushes it again, and starts stitching. The anaesthetic takes the edge off, but I still feel enough to know exactly what she is doing. My head pounds harder under the bright light.
She glances up once. “Any dizziness?”
“No, just the side.”
She looks like she wants to argue, but she knows better.
She tapes the fresh dressing down and presses lightly around it. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Still here.”
“For now.” She strips off one pair of gloves and roots around in a drawer. “I don’t have human painkillers at the level you need, but here is some paracetamol.”
Callan snorts but keeps his trap shut.
Sitting up, I take them and the bottle of water she hands me, and I swallow them so she will let me walk out of here.
“Right,” I say, getting to my feet. “Thanks. Got a spare shirt?”
She rolls her eyes and gets me a cheap, dark grey tee from a cupboard that probably holds emergency dog blankets and dignity for pet owners. “This is the best I can do.”
“It’s fine.” I drag it on carefully, biting back a curse when the fabric brushes the dressing.
Lila watches me for a second too long. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Always. Thanks. Callan will pay whatever, just give him a price.”
She purses her lips. “A thousand. And five for the tee.”
“I don’t have that kind of cash.”
“Card is fine. I’ll put it under ‘hurt ox’.”
Callan snorts so hard, I think he cleared his sinuses for a whole year.
“Fucking funny,” I grit out and head for the door. I feel marginally better now that I’m not bleeding freely anymore. It’s a start. I push through the door while Callan settles up, and I stand in the morning sun, breathing deeply.
Callan comes out a moment later. “You okay?”
“Food, and then we need to find our way back to the penthouse. Ethan will be going crazy.”
“Unless Jack or Maeve got to them first.”
“Don’t,” I say, putting my hand up. “If anyone has gone near Annabelle, I’ll slay them so hard, they will wonder why they bothered to get within a thousand miles of her.”
Callan nods. “Welcome back, arsehole. There’s a bakery up the road.”
He sets off, and I follow, still favouring my side.