“Front door,” I instructed. Prick could get his own ass to the hospital.
Kult cracked a menacing grin. “My pleasure. Out of the way.”
He started to haul a shrieking Karl through the crowd so he could kick the prick to the curb.
Right where the fucker belonged.
One step, and the crush parted, Kult nothing but intimidation and brute strength.
I inhaled a cleansing breath, doing my best to get it together enough to look to where the group was huddled on the floor while my heart raged a riot in my chest.
Eden, Trent, and Logan had already gathered around Tessa and Salem. Eden was frantic, kneeling in front of her friends, her hands shaking out of control as she tried to check if they were hurt.
Milo leaned down, and he gently scooped a sobbing Tessa into his massive, gigantic arms. Dude was basically a mute fortress. Quiet and soft and forbidding as fuck. “You’re safe, little dove. Don’t cry, you’re safe.”
He rumbled it like a promise as he started to carry her through the throng.
Trent gave me a quick glance, and I gestured with my chin. “Go.”
He dipped his head before he guided Eden to follow behind Milo who cut through the crowd.
My attention shifted to Salem. Salem who had her knees to her chest and was rocking. Rocking and trembling and mumbling incoherently.
Logan stood guard over her, watching me, giving me a fierce look that told me not to be a fool. That he was going to step in if I didn’t.
Thing was, it did make me a fool.
A fuckin’ fool as I went for her.
Because that girl looked up when she felt me cautiously approach.
Ground rumbled beneath.
The warning of a coming earthquake.
Of devastation.
Destruction.
I leaned down and slipped my arms around her back and under her knees.
Salem yelped.
A shout from her soul.
Mine clutched.
I gathered her closer. “I have you, Salem. I have you, baby.”
A sob wrenched from her throat, and she buried her face in my neck, into my beard, against my chest, like she could hide away in the safety of my arms.
“I have you.”
And I didn’t want to let her go.
TWENTY-ONE
SALEM
I have you. I have you. I have you.
Jud’s promise rained over me as he curled his arms tighter, and he carried me through the swarm of people that undulated around us.
The band continued to play from the stage where half the crowd still seethed below it. Jud stormed right through, carving a path and dipping us into a narrow, dusky hall.
In an instant, it was only the two of us.
His heavy boots thudded on the floor as he peered down at me with that unrelenting obsidian gaze.
A gaze that speared me to the core.
Tears streamed and my shoulders hiccupped with the sobs that wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t seem to halt the terror that wracked through my body. The panic that had hit me when a stranger had come at us from out of nowhere.
Jud dipped down and pressed the gentlest kiss to my right eye, then the other. “I have you,” he rumbled.
My chest squeezed.
Ruined.
I had to close my eyes against the force of it.
His care.
This giant of a man who’d come completely unhinged. Fury and darkness and brutality.
Because of me.
Because of me.
He didn’t stop until he was pushing out the massive metal door at the end of the hall. In an instant, the cool air of the summer night surrounded us. The heavens were spun in stars, while fat clouds laden with moisture gathered at the base of the moon.
Jud edged down three steps that dropped us into the employee lot where Eden had parked earlier, and his boots crunched on the loose pavement as he carried me to his bike that was parked in a row of five other motorcycles.
Tumult echoed from within, rippled through the walls and rumbled the ground.
It stirred the dense air into chaos.
I struggled to breathe.
“I have you. What do you need?” he asked, his voice close to cracking.
“Take me away from here.” It was the only thing I could manage, but Jud understood.
I wasn’t exactly dressed for a motorcycle ride, but right then, it didn’t matter. Nothing did except for escaping.
Running.
The way I always did.
Only this time, I wanted to run with him.
For once, I didn’t want to stand on my own.
Didn’t want to fight this fight that only cost my daughter and me more and more.
One that forever cast us into loneliness.
Jud swung his leg over his bike, and he slipped me around to the back in one smooth movement.
We never lost contact.
As if he knew it was exactly what I needed.
That for once, I needed someone to hold me.
Someone to support me through the fear.
Through the panic.
Through the dread that promised one day, one day, Carlo would find us.
Jud pressed the button that started his bike, and the loud engine growled to life. Power vibrated through the metal, or maybe it was just the power of the man that vibrated through me.