Page 69 of Falcon’s Forever

“Good.” I keep the pressure steady. “What’s your favourite food?”

“Pizza,” Emily says.

“Terrible choice,” I tell her.

A weak sound escapes her, almost a laugh, and I hold onto that.

Boots pound down the hallway and Knox drops beside us. "Talk to me."

"A bullet came through the wall, I think. It’s her side, I've had pressure on it for maybe two minutes."

"Good." He opens his bag. "Cara, move your left hand slowly."

I do, and blood wells the second I lift it. He replaces my hand with gauze and checks for an exit wound and thankfully he finds one.

"Is that good?" I ask.

"It’s better than it being inside her." He looks at Emily. "Hey, trouble."

"Knox." She looks at him, but I’m not sure she’s taking him in.

"That's me. Stay awake for me." He’s gentle and reassuring, you’d never guess he was the medic for a MC.

"I’m tired,” she says, closing her eyes.

"Nope. Sleep later." He turns to Frankie. "Hold this exactly here." She does, and I sit back on my heels with my hands covered in blood, Emily's blood, and for a second I'm not in this house at all. I'm somewhere else, another room, another wound, men walking past while somebody cried and nobody came.

"Cara." Knox's voice pulls me back. "You with me?"

"Yes."

"Good. The ambulance is coming through the gates." He looks at me.

"Is she going to make it?" I ask, quietly.

His eyes meet mine and he doesn't lie to me. "I think so." Think, it’s not promise, but I take it anyway, because it's honest.

Outside the gunfire slows, then stops, and silence crashes over the house harder than the noise did. The radio on Sterling's shoulder crackles. "North secure." Then Vulture. "Rear clear. Two down. One fled east. Compound hold."

"Women's house has one GSW. Knox working," Sterling reports.

The pause on the other end is small but it's there. "Copy."

Everyone's alive. Everyone but Emily's untouched. We followed the plan, the system worked, and she still got hurt, and that truth sits in my chest and won't move, because safety was never going to mean perfection. I know that. I hate it anyway.

Sirens approach and half the room tenses again at the sound before their brains catch up to what it means.

"That's the ambulance," I say, loud enough for everyone to hear it, and people start to breathe.

Sterling goes to meet the paramedics at the door. Knox looks at me. "Cara, I need you to move back." I do, not because I want to, but because this part's his job now.

They move fast, checking vitals, asking questions, and when they lift the stretcher Emily's eyes find mine.

"Come with me,” she pleads with me.

My heart breaks clean in half. "I will."

"I'm riding with her," Knox says before I can.