Pulse.
But he wasn’t screaming. Maybe he was still asleep?
Pulse.
My eyes shifted to the window at the end of the hallway, where a pair of Converse shoes scraped the glass.
No!
Pulse.
Blood rushed into my ears before another set of shoes hit beside them.
Red laces.
Jessie.
Pulse.
And then a third, slipping and twisting, until his rope snapped.
Nathem.
Pulse.
“Wolfe,” I cried, scrambling to my knees when I crashed into the body that slumped before me. The curve of his shape was so perfectly familiar. So fucking mine! “Thay?!”
I turned just in time to vomit against the wall, my stomach twisting from the inside. Holy fuck.
I blinked hard, forcing myself into something like clarity. Something like breath… but all of it was floating, and I couldn’t touch any of it.
“We’ve got to go, Thay,” I said, dragging him under the arms, scanning the walls for any sign of movement.
“Daph?” he grumbled, swatting me from his body, but I ignored it, using everything I had to pull him behind the door. “Let me go,” he ground out when I shifted him an inch and buckled onto his shoulders.
He was so heavy.
Fuck, no.
“Why did you do this?” my voice broke as I attempted again, this time sliding him a little more.
“I didn’t want them going into the room and finding you,” he mumbled, his head falling to the side. “I knew they’d leave if they took their shot.”
Fucking asshole.
“Wolfe is.. um.. he is…”
“Shhh,” Thay whispered. “You need to go. Take the gun from my table and climb out the fire escape,” he ground out through the pain. “But stay by the wall in case they are still up there. Don’t let them see you.”
“What?” I shook my head in protest. “I am not leaving you here. Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“GET THE FUCK OUT of here, Daphne!” It took everything he had to force the words out, but I refused.
Instead, I kept my mind moving.
I leaned forward, catching sight of his stomach, swallowing hard when I discovered pieces of his intestines pushing through. Grabbing one of his shirts, I moved fast, straddling his lower half while I wrapped it around him.
“We will stop the bleeding until the ambulance arrives," I explained, pulling out my phone and sending for help.
