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So Luke had saved her three times, as it turned out.
Maybe she was a cat, though. And still had six left.
When he bottomed out by the front door, Luke paused and turned left, turned right. Courtesy of her iron grip on the gun, the muzzle swung around to both of the open apartments. No one came out of the darkness on either side.
“We’re going out the back door,” he said.
And then the pain started up again as his long strides carried them both down a narrow hallway that had sheets of vinyl wallpaper peeling off from the ceiling and trash scattered to the sides of the corridor, a Litter Sea parted by those who had created the problem.
The back door had a small window set about five feet up from the floor, the opaque glass crisscrossed with chicken wire. Luke kicked the thing open—and right outside was an old two-door Cutlass sedan. Navy blue. With a pinstripe.
He went around and unlocked the passenger side with a key, the old-fashioned way. Then he had to tilt her down so he could pull the handle, and there was a metal-on-metal squeak as he opened things.
“I’ll be as careful as I can—”
“Just drop me in there so we can go.”
Rio tried not to pass out as he set her in the seat, but her body was as limber as a brick wall—and felt just as liable to break apart under sufficient pressure. As her lips peeled off her front teeth, she closed her eyes and leaned out, in case she threw up.
Maybe that drug was still in her system.
She felt the gun get taken from her hands, and she was more than fine with letting it go. Breathing in and out of her open mouth, she tried to focus on something to keep herself conscious . . . keep herself alive—
That cologne of his. She trained all her attention on the way that Luke smelled—and whether it was the placebo effect or there actually was some kind of magic in whatever he’d aftershave’d himself with . . . eventually, she was able to bring herself back from the brink.
Like he knew she was ready to get buckled in, Luke carefully pushed her shoulders into position so she was properly in the seat.
“I’ll get the belt.” Luke’s voice, so deep, so level, was right in her ear. “Just keep breathing.”
Good advice, she thought to herself.
After he pulled the strap over her torso and clicked it into place, he closed her in and she watched him with blurry eyes as he bolted around the front of the car. When he had to pause and flipped the set of keys around in his hand, she made a move like she was going to reach over and pop the lock for him. But there was no lifting her arm.
At the rate her body was refreezing in its current position, she was going to have to be surgically removed from this car.
Fortunately, Luke did not have her problems with mobility. He all but pile-drove himself in behind the wheel, and the easy way he tossed the pack into the back seat without any effort was not the kind of thing she’d ever thought she’d envy. As soon as the engine turned over, he threw them in reverse and stomped on the gas.
“Don’t hurry,” she mumbled as they jerked back. “No accident.”
“Right.” He K-turned at a more reasonable clip. “Try and sleep. We’ve got a ways to go.”
“Where.” Finishing the sentence was too much like work. “Kidnapping me?”
His head whipped around. “What the hell?”
“Guess I’d be in trunk, then.” She tried to smile at him, but all she could manage was to turn her head in his direction. “Right?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Little funny.”
“No, not at all.”
And then they were off, traveling toward the river at only slightly faster than the thirty-mile-an-hour limit. She watched him instead of the street. He was bearing down on the steering wheel like he might rip it off its column, sitting forward as if he could get them to wherever they were going quicker if his face was closer to the windshield.
As the pain ramped up, and she felt that horrible retching sensation threaten the back of her throat, she moaned. “I think . . . need a doctor . . .”
“I know. I’m going to take care of it.”
She was going to tell him to just take her home, but that wasn’t safe. Mozart was going to find out sooner or later that his hitman hadn’t just failed. He’d been eaten. And with only one bloody body at the scene? Her old “boss” was going to guess she was still out in the world, some-where.
With all kinds of information on him.
“Where dog come from,” she heard herself say.
When Luke didn’t respond, she figured he had no better idea than she did. Or maybe she hadn’t said that out loud? She just couldn’t seem to connect to the world, the agony in her body the kind of thing that so completely overwhelmed her senses, it was hard to break through its haze and connect to anything outside of herself.
