35
“No!” I scoop her up from the floor, wincing at how rough I’m handling her but I don’t have time to be gentle. She needed a hospital. Now. “Don’t you dare close your eyes little bird.”
Anger pulses through me like a bull, red hot and furious. She doesn’t get to leave me like this.
She doesn’t get to fucking leave me.
“Wake up Wren,” I shake her, feeling the warm droplets of blood running over my hands. How long has it been? Minutes? Fuck I don’t now, it feels like hours.
The crowd in the club continues to pulse wildly to the music. No one turns our way, no one even bats an eye at the man holding a bleeding woman in his arms.
I turn to the door but the crowd is too thick to move through without either dropping Wren or hurting her further.
This is the Syndicate.
They got her.
I turn back and tilt my head to the balcony, seeing Ryker on the couch. He’s still nursing a scotch, his head tipped back so he’s facing the ceiling.
As if sensing my eyes, he slowly lifts his head and meets my stare through the glass.
It doesn’t even take him a second.
He jumps up from the couch and begins to shout orders I can’t hear over the music. It would be me doing this, but I can’t seem to think, let alone talk.
I look down at Wren’s sickly pale face, her eyes fluttering closed again.
“Wake up, baby,” I shake her, “Wake up.”
I needed to get moving.
I push around the edge of the crowd, forcing my way to the stairs and the only easy way out. Ryker is pounding towards me.
“What the fuck happened?” He goes to touch her and something in me snaps. I snatch her away, curling myself around her body as if to protect her though I know, deep down, it isn’t Ryker she needs protection from.
It’s me.
I caused this. She’s bleeding out in my arms because of whatIdid.
That strange scent hits me half a second before an almighty boom rattles the walls of the club.
Both Ryker and I, with Wren in my arms, are thrown off our feet with the blast, fire instantly erupting. Dazed, with my ears ringing I push onto my elbows, reaching for Wren.
She’s face down on the ground, her wild cooper hair spilled around her like a fiery halo.
I feel the heat from the flames, can hear the screams and cries of the crowd and feel the stamp of feet vibrating the floor beneath me as they rush for the exit but my focus isn’t on that, it isn’t on how the fuck this has happened or who, it’s only on her.
Pain pulses through my body at the same pace of my frantic heartbeat. I know I’m bleeding, badly but so is she. A red pool is blooming from beneath her body and red tendrils, like crimson snakes run ribbons over her pale skin, over her legs, arms and shoulders.
“Wren,” my voice is raspy, “Wren.”
With every single ounce of strength I have, I reach her, gently turning her body until she’s laying on her back. Her chest rises and falls, and with ash clinging to her dark lashes, she blinks up at me.
She looks completely broken. Battered.
Bruise’s bloom across her pale skin, joining with the crimson that runs rivers over her body.
“You’re okay baby.”