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Jo-Jo coughed, as though she was trying to say something. I leaned closer so I could hear what she was telling me. "coop . . . " she finally whispered. ". . . er. "
It took me a moment to put the syllables together. "cooper?"
Jo-Jo's head lolled to one side, which I took as a yes .
Bria frowned. "cooper? cooper Stills? Do you think that he can heal her?" cooper was Jo-Jo's gentleman friend. Well, I suspected that they were a little more than friends, but that didn't matter right now. All that did was the fact that he had Air magic. cooper was a blacksmith by trade, so I didn't know how good at healing he was. Still, I knew that he'd do his damnedest to save Jo-Jo any way he could.
At around five feet, Jo-Jo was tall for a dwarf, and she was heavy, because of her stocky physique. All of her thick, strong muscles had saved her from being immediately killed by Grimes's bullets, but they weren't doing her any favors now, because Bria and I didn't have the upper-body strength to move her as quickly as we needed to. All we could really do was carefully shuffle forward with her a few steps at a time - time that Jo-Jo didn't have.
Since Bria had Jo-Jo's shoulders and I had her ankles, I grimaced thinking about how Finn and I had moved those giants' bodies a few days before behind the Pork Pit.
And now here I was, doing the exact same thing to Jo-Jo.
It was one of the cruelest, sickest feelings of irony that I'd ever experienced.
And another thing that I was going to kill Harley Grimes for.
"We aren't getting anywhere like this," Bria finally said.
"Put her down. I have an idea. "
I bit my lip, wanting to scream at the delay, and she noticed my hesitation. Rosco let out another whine, mirroring my frustration.
"Trust me," she said.
I nodded, and we slowly lowered Jo-Jo to the blood - spattered floor. Once that was done, Bria moved in front of the dwarf, as though she were going to leave the salon and step out into the hallway, although she ended up crouching down beside Jo-Jo's bare feet. She put her hands flat on the floor, and the bluish white light of her magic leaked out from underneath her palms. A blast of power filled the salon and rolled outward through the entire house, and my own Ice magic stirred in response to the welcome, familiar feel of my sister's cold, frosty power. A second later, the light and the feel of her magic vanished.
"There," she said, getting to her feet. "Maybe this will help make it easier to move her. "
I peered out into the hallway, which now resembled some sort of crystal cave. My sister had used her magic to coat the floor from the salon all the way to the front door with an inch of elemental Ice.
"We can drag her along the Ice easier and faster than we can carry her," Bria explained.
I grimaced again at the thought, but then I nodded.
"You're right. It's not pretty, but I think it will work. "
We moved back over to Jo-Jo, picked up her again, and shuffled forward until she was in the hallway. Then we put her down on the sheet of Ice. The cold crystals seared the bottoms of my bare feet, but I didn't care. All that mattered was saving Jo-Jo. Bria and I leaned down, each of us grabbing one of Jo-Jo's legs.
Then we pulled her across the Ice.
Bria had been right. With the slick surface, we were able to move farther and faster than if we'd still been trying to carry Jo-Jo. Rosco trotted along beside us, his black toenails digging into the Ice for traction.
We were still careful, though, trying not to jostle her any more than necessary. I hated doing this to Jo-Jo, dragging her along like she was just another body that I needed to dispose of, but we didn't have a choice, not if we wanted to get her to cooper before it was too late.
Jo-Jo didn't utter a sound the whole time, although I knew how much pain she had to be in, not only from her wounds but also at the thought of what Grimes would do to Sophia. Instead, she fixed her gaze on the ceiling. The clouds that had been painted up there matched the white mist that filled her eyes.
But what made my stomach clench were the scarlet smears left behind on the Ice, like long, thin talons trying to tear into the crystals. I couldn't tell if the stains were from all of the blood that covered Jo-Jo's clothes or if her wounds had started bleeding again. It didn't much matter, since I couldn't do a damn thing about it either way.
Not one damn thing.
Jo-Jo wasn't going to die, I vowed. I wasn't going to let her. I'd already lost my mom; my older sister, Annabella; and Fletcher. I wasn't going to lose Jo-Jo too. Not like this and not to a piece of scum as twisted, dirty, and rotten as Harley Grimes.
When we reached the end of the hallway, Bria bent down and sent another wave of Ice crystals rolling out in front of her, coating the front porch.
We had managed to tug Jo-Jo out onto the porch and started to pick her up again to carry her down the stairs when a car pulled up the driveway and stopped in front of the house. I tensed, thinking that maybe Grimes and Hazel had come back for their men, after all, or maybe even for Bria and me. But after a moment, I recognized the silver Audi and realized who it belonged to.
A woman opened the driver's-side door, got out, and stepped around the car. Like Bria and me, she was dressed down, in a black T-shirt, khaki shorts, and black strappy sandals, but the simple clothes only seemed to enhance the generous swell of her breasts, her toned legs, and all of the lush, lovely curves in between. She pushed her sunglasses up onto her head to hold back her black hair. The bright morning sun brought out the rich color of her toffee skin and eyes, further enhancing her beauty.
