“Is she breathing?” StoneFace asks, moving to kneel in front of us, his fingers moving to her wrist to feel for a pulse.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know.”
“She’s got a pulse.” Moving away, he gives us space. “A strong one. Looks like she’s just passed out.”
Relieved, I bury my face in her neck, inhaling the scent of her for the first time. She smells of blood and sweat, and a hint of strawberries. She’s alive. Alan didn’t kill her after all. The fucker didn’t have time.
“That the girl who called me?” Judge asks, his voice low.
I nod, not moving my face from her neck. “Her name is Boo,” I tell him. “She fucking saved me.”
Silence follows my sentence, and then Judge places a hand on my shoulder. “Then let’s get her home.”
“Okay.” Pain and exhaustion wash over me as I hold her closer. “You did it, Boo. You fucking did it. We’re getting out of here.”
Several moments pass before StoneFace returns with a blanket to wrap her in. “Let me take her, man. You can sit with her in the van, but we gotta get you both out of here and to the doc.”
Helpless, I watch as he covers her up, scoops her into his arms, and carries her toward the door. My body doesn’t even have the energy to follow. All I want to do is curl up right here and go to sleep.
Sleep and Boo. Fuck. Her monitoring bracelet is still on. The last thing we need is for those fuckers to have a beacon to track her down. We can’t leave with that still on her.
“Wait!” I call out just before StoneFace is gone. “She has an ankle monitor on. One of the guys can track it. We need to remove it.”
StoneFace nods. “I saw it. I’ll have Hash get it off before we leave. No one will know where she is.”
“Let’s go.” Taking my hand, TK helps me up off the floor. When my knees threaten to give out, he wraps his arm around my waist and holds me up.
“What do you want me to do with these fuckers?” Hashtag inquires, standing over two of the Screwballs still kneeling on the floor, watching everything going down.
Judge turns and spits on the floor in their direction. “Kill them.”
I squint against the sun when we step out of the building. Being locked in a dark room for several days has made my eyes sensitive to the big ball of fire hovering in the sky. “Big Dick,” I say to TK. “He wants Harrison.”
TK’s jaw grows hard. “I know. He and a bunch of the others took off out the back when we barged in. Fuckers had their guns out. One of them shot GP, but he’s all right. Just grazed.”
I pause and meet his gaze. “They got away?”
“For now.”
“Why didn’t you follow them? They’re after your woman and her kid.”
TK clenches his jaw, but it’s Judge who answers for him. “We were here for you. We got one girl stabbed and bleeding out. Your girl isn’t even conscious, and you look like you’ve been fed to a fucking meat grinder. Let’s deal with one thing at a time.”
“But Cora—”
“Cora and Harrison are safe,” he assures me. “That fucker won’t get to them before we put him and the rest of his club down.”
I don’t know if that will happen, but the fact that Cora and the boy are safe is reassuring enough to push me forward.
TK helps me into the back of the utility van. There are no seats back here, so I climb in and settle against the side wall. The unconscious woman from the main room is curled up on a blanket on the floor, a bright bloom of blood staining her pink cotton shirt.
As I take Boo from StoneFace and settle her head in my lap, I make a promise to her and to myself. I will end each and every one of those fuckers. But first, I need to take care of my girl.
BOO
They say when you die,a white light and the past flashes before your eyes. I certainly saw a white light, but it was soon replaced with darkness. Cool darkness and peace.
It’s funny, this peace. I’d wished for it for so long, but now that it’s here, I don’t know how to accept it. It feels unreal. Am I dead? That’s what I had wanted, but now I don’t know what to do with it. The afterlife is certainly not the same as the descriptions in the bible. There’s no golden gate, no angels, no mansions, and no streets of gold. Just darkness.