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28
WAYWARD BULLETS
The necklace was a bomb?
The asphalt shook beneath my body, Theo’s weight on top of me driving the vibrations deeper into my stomach. I couldn’t see the cause of such violent noise and feeling, Theo’s arm over my downturned face blocking the view.
Wasn’t sure if Iwantedto see it.
“Did I just blow up a house?” I screamed through the fabric of Theo’s sleeve.
Wait. I screamed.
I was alive.
Needed Theo to get off me so I could check my extremities, make sure I wasn’t shot, bleeding out underneath him while he pointlessly tried to protect me when I was already dying.
Except … he wasn’t moving.
“Theo,” I gritted out, testing his girth by heaving up on one forearm. I quickly collapsed. “Are you awake?”
Because that was what you asked an unconscious person seconds after something blows up in his face.
“God…” I puffed out air with the word.
Theo was barely standing before this. His stance in front of his family was all show.
Then I came into the picture with an unknown IUD and forced him into a sprint, carrying me on his shoulders up a flight of stairs and out of the house in order to escape the blowback.
“Theo, I need to get up,” I said to him, needing to say, do, something, so I didn’t think about the consequences.
Where were Trace and Gordon? Was their younger brother in there as well? Staff? What was the state of the mansion? Was Theo hurt? Mortally wounded? Was I?
The worry bubbled through my arteries, hissing as it hit veins. It gave me the strength I needed to roll to the side, my left hip grinding into the pavement andtwangingas nerves scrambled underneath. My lungs compressed, one rib cage having to do the work of two in order to protect from cracking.
One breath, puff out. Two, heave ho. Heave.Ho.
I yelled out when I finally maneuvered Theo enough to slide out from under. Coughing, I made it to a sit. There was ash in the air. Squinting through the grit, I spotted the house, smoking at the edges, but otherwise standing.
Next, I looked down at myself, feeling for the wound I was sure was there, but what I registered on the back of my thigh was a large splinter, which I pulled out before thinking how much it would hurt.
Wood from the staircase? A jagged piece that broke off when a bullet tore by?
There wasn’t time to ponder. Theo was next. I’d rolled him to an awkward side sleeping position, so pushed him the rest of the way, splayed open his blazer, and felt him down.
“Stay with me, baby,” I whispered like a mantra, frantically checking for wounds, broken bones, wet, red blooming stains.
Nothing. Oh, thank God, nothing.
In the background, I registered the wail of sirens, coming closer. I looked up through my strands of hair in an attempt to spy Trace or Gordon crawling through the iron gate, but couldn’t spot a single hair belonging to them.
Wait—sirens.Sirens.Police. The FBI.
Thenecklace.
Kai.
Oh,Kai.
