By the second bag, the wounds from Kieran’s claws and teeth had closed, but her shoulder still burned, and her chest continued to feel like it was concaved. That second injury might be one only time could fix, and they didn’t have that at the moment.
Maya wiped blood from her mouth. “What happened?”
“I don’t know exactly. Everything happened so fast, and it… They took Harper. And Evie. One of them hit her in the head, and she fell.” Nell’s hands started shaking. “Th-they shot at me.”
Maya sniffed at the air. No blood, other than the dead kind.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I tripped right when they fired, and then I just stayed down. Maybe they thought I was dead.” She looked at the tracks the pickups had made, hugging herself. “What do we do now?”
The tire tracks were already blowing away. With this wind, they would be gone in minutes. But she didn’t need tracks. Not with the pull aching in her chest.
The wise thing would be to wait for backup. But Natalya was taking her sweet fucking time getting Aleksander’s forces to the cabin, and there were hundreds of miles between here and Chicago.
There wasn’t room for wisdom in this situation.
Maya clenched her jaw. “Where’s my knife?”
Nell looked around the snowy clearing for a few seconds before finding the weapon.
Maya steeled herself. Her shoulder felt like it was on fire.
“I need you to dig the bullet out.”
Nell’s eyes widened. “You need me to dowhat?”
“I have to go after them. I can’t do that with silver lodged in my shoulder, so I need you to dig it out.”
Nell looked like she was more likely to throw the knife away than assist with that. The air was so thick with fear that it was a wonder she hadn’t just run away from the scene.
Then she crouched next to Maya. “How bad is this going to be?”
“Really bad. Try to work fast.”
Nell pushed aside Maya’s t-shirt, sucking air in through her teeth when she saw the bloody mess that was her shoulder.
“Oh, this fucking sucks,” she mumbled. Maya just had the realization that she’d never heard Nell curse before when the tip of the knife touched the wound and burning pain clawed through her flesh.
She screamed, forcing her body to keep still as Nell worked. Every time either the blade or the bullet moved, it felt like her blood lit on fire.
About a minute later, Nell sat back, holding the switchblade in one hand and the bullet in the other. Her fingers were stained scarlet.
“Good job,” Maya ground out. She pushed herself onto her knees, muscles screaming in protest, and took the bloody knife from Nell’s hand. “Get my jacket. I don’t know how much time we have.”
“Time to do what? Evie and Harper are miles away by now. We don’t even know where they took them.”
Maya touched her bloody chest. “Yes. We do.”
She delivered the outline of the plan she’d come up with, though it was rough to say the least. The storm was dying. When it passed, there would be nothing stopping Kieran from taking Harper far away from here.
Her absence hurt. Hurt deeper than being impaled through the heart. Every minute Harper spent in his clutches was a minute too long. The thought of what he might do to her, orbedoing to her, made Maya feel sick.
Nell didn’t interrupt as Maya talked. When she was done, she hurried back to the cabin, returning with Maya’s leather jacket.
“What about me?” Nell asked as Maya stuffed the remaining blood bags into her pockets. “What do I do?”
“You get inside. Do not leave, underanycircumstances. I don’t think these wolves will come back, but if they do, that house is your best defense. They won’t be able to get in.”
