Page 8 of Dreadful

A sharp, hot ache lances through my arm as I reach for him, but I grit my teeth and curl my fingers around the hard curve of his bicep. “I’m fine. You—you protected me. Are you okay?”

Movement flickers in my periphery. Rafe is off me in a single fluid motion, rising to a crouch, his gun already up and aimed at the blur sprinting toward us.

“You gonna shoot me too, asshole?” Lola’s voice cuts through the ringing, raw and furious. A dark smear of soil stains her temple, and a thin line of blood traces a path from her hairline down her cheek.

Panic flutters underneath my skin like moth wings, and I’m scanning the area in the next breath. “Where’s Beck?”

Like he was summoned, our brother appears next to Lola. His eyes are too bright, pupils blown wide, the thin cut above his left brow still beading blood. He scans the lot in one sharp sweep before his gaze lands on me and locks. “Right here.”

I look between them, searching for the things people don’t volunteer—the way Beck is holding his ribs on the left side, the way Lola’s hands won’t quite stop moving.

Rafe pulls me upright like I weigh nothing. I breathe through my nose until my vision stops narrowing at the edges.

“We’re fine,” Lola says, her eyes moving over me in a way that isn’t fine at all. “You’re the one who got shot.”

“I’m fine,” I say, for what feels like the fourth time in as many minutes.

Rafe’s hand finds mine. “Time to go, baby.”

Lola materializes on my right. Beck takes the outside, behind Rafe, his eyes already sweeping back toward the corner we came from. The formation closes around me so naturally it almost doesn’t register—and then it does, and my stomach turns over.

Part of me hates that it feels like I’m the weakest link here. I should be the one who’s on the outside—I’m the eldest daughter, and it’s my responsibility to protect them.

My next breath tastes like blood and smoke and something else, something sharp and clean: all of us still breathing. I bite down on my lip until I taste copper, holding back the tremor that wants to shake through me.

We’re alive.

The thought is a bright, hard knot in my throat. Then the sirens cut through the night, closer now, and the knot unravels into cold dread. Alive, but not safe. Not even close.

“Where are we going?” Beck questions, his head a continuous movement left to right.

The four of us stagger down a side street, away from the main lot. Behind us, the motorcycle engines rev and snarl. Somewhere ahead, a siren wails—or maybe behind, I can’t place it. My own breathing keeps cutting in over everything else, too loud, too close, like it’s coming from inside a tin can. The warehouse pops and groans as something structural gives way, and I feel the sound more than I hear it, a low shudder that moves up through the soles of my feet.

Rafe keeps a tight grip on me until we’re two blocks away. Only then does he slow, pushing me gently against a broken chain link fence in front of the SUV we drove here.

Lola pounds the flat of her hand on the hood of the car, her gaze wild as her head swivels left and right. “C’mon, Rafe. What are we waiting for? The sirens are getting closer.”

“Motorcycles too,” Beck mutters, his brow furrowed as he watches the corner where we just came from.

Rafe ignores them. He looks at my arm, and then he’s pulling his t-shirt over his head in a single motion, ripping it down the middle without looking at it, his eyes already moving to the street behind us. His hands find my arm and start winding the fabric tight. The shirt is warm and smells like him—salt, smoke, something underneath that I don’t have a word for.

The muscle in his jaw fluttering. Whatever just happened inside that warehouse, he’s still inside it, working something out, and I’m not sure I’m going to like where he lands.

Rafe’s hands are still moving on my arm, but I’ve stopped feeling them. I’m watching his face instead—the way the muscle in his jaw keeps jumping, the way his eyes track the street behind me even while he works. The fuller pull of his bottom lip when he presses his mouth flat. The sharp line of his brow.

Fuck. When did I become so attached?

And not just to him, but all the Calloways.

The thought moves through me like something tearing loose. I left Hollow Beach for six years last time, but I don’t think it’s long enough to erase the damage I’ve unintentionally caused tonight. This… this might be it for me and the beach town I grew up in.

“I’m going to miss you.” The whispered confession is out of my mouth before I can think better of it. My eyes sting. I tell myself it’s the smoke.

His hands stop, his gaze flying to mine. “Where are we going, baby?”

The taste of blood is a sharp, metallic slick on my lip. I drag my tongue across it, a futile attempt to wipe the memory of the warehouse away. “We—I can’t stay. Not after what I did in there.” My head jerks toward the glow bleeding over the rooftops, where the warehouse groans and spits embers into the night.

His hand slides up my spine, palm pressing flat between my shoulder blades, pulling me into the heat of his body. The other cups the base of my skull, thumb tilting my chin up until all I see is him. “You saved my life.” His voice is low, graveled with smoke and something that sounds like reverence. “That bullet was meant for my chest, baby.”