“Quinn—” he started as Quinn pulled Shane’s arm over his shoulder and helped him back to his feet.
“How bad is it?” Quinn cut him off. He was sure if Shane started spouting any “leave me behind, save yourself” shit, he was going to punch the man.
“Feels like my goddamn leg is on fire.”
Quinn got Shane into a small cluster of trees with thick trunks for cover. The shots had stopped, but that didn’t mean the shooter had left the area. He could have just been moving to a better position to take out Kate or even them. He could only hope that the police sirens he heard steadily increasing in volume had scared the shooter off, but Quinn wasn’t willing to take that kind of chance with Shane’s life.
Carefully, he helped Shane sit on the ground, shoulder against the trunk. His wounded left thigh was lifted so Quinn could inspect the wound. “Where’s your gun?” Quinn demanded as he shucked his jacket.
“Right ankle,” Shane bit out through clenched teeth.
Quinn jerked up Shane’s pant leg and pulled the Smith & Wesson snub-nose revolver from the holder. “This is what you carry for protection?” Quinn mocked as he handed the gun over to Shane.
“Isn’t there a great saying about it’s not the size but how you use it that matters?”
Quinn allowed a weak smile. Shane cracking jokes helped, but there was no missing the pain and worry in his dark eyes. Quinn wanted to lean in and kiss him, tell him that they were going to get out of this alive, but he couldn’t lie to him. They had no idea where the shooter was, and if they managed to get away from the park without further injury, they had an even bigger problem to deal with when it came to the information that Kate had given them.
“I think this may be one of those instances where I’m going to say that size fucking matters.” He moved behind Shane to get a closer look at where the bullet hit him. He knew exactly nothing about first aid beyond applying the occasional band-aid to a paper cut and calamine lotion to poison ivy rashes, but he needed to make sure that Shane wasn’t going to bleed out before real help arrived.
“And I think that you need to hang out with people other than Rowe and his band of fucking—holy fuck! What are you doing back there?” Shane shouted over the ripping of his pants.
Quinn pulled the new opening in Shane’s pants a little wider. “I need to see how bad you’re hurt.” There was a lot of blood and a long, angry slash across the back of his upper thigh, but it looked like the bullet had just ripped across the meaty part of his leg and not dug in.
“Am I gonna lose the leg, Dr. Lake?” Shane demanded irritably. He sucked in a loud breath when Quinn continued to poke around the wound.
Quinn snorted as he rolled his jacket into a long strip of material and wrapped it around Shane’s thigh in an effort to slow the bleeding. “Nah. Not this time, but I bet you’re glad you didn’t choose to go commando today.” He could easily see the black boxer briefs through the new hole in the slacks and the wind was picking up again.
“Too cold today for that shit.”
“You’ll be okay until the paramedics get here. I’m just going to—”
He’d started to move around Shane, edging back toward the playground when Shane’s free hand snaked out and roughly grabbed Quinn by the wrist, halting him.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“I need to make sure that there’s no one else hurt or trapped on the playground.”
“Quinn.”
“It’s quiet. He’s probably run already rather than getting caught by the cops.”
“Take this,” Shane said, trying to press the gun on him.
He shook his head and then carefully pried Shane’s fingers off his wrist. “Trust me, you’re better off with that than I am.” He’d never shot a gun before. Never wanted to. Besides, if the shooter was still out there, he was hidden. Quinn knew he had no chance in hell in hitting him. He’d much rather Shane have that little bit of protection.
“I don’t like this.”
Quinn got it. Shane didn’t want him risking his life and it warmed him deep down, while he struggled to not allow those words to come to mean something more to him. But it also meant that Shane understood that he had to do this. If Shane could easily move, he’d be right there with Quinn, ensuring that there weren’t any parents or kids out there hurt or terrified. So he let go of Quinn.
Keeping low, Quinn scrambled across the ground, back toward the edge of the tree cover so that he could clearly see the playground that was now unsettlingly silent. There were no kids. No laughter. No parents sitting on benches, their eyes bouncing between their kids and their cell phones. The swings were still. He spotted a stray pink, knit hat. A small shoe. But no bodies. No blood.