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“The fucker’s dead,” Easton grunts, his skin clammy and pale.
Dalton crosses to the kitchen and searches through the cabinets before pulling out a first aid kit and bringing it back to the table. He tears it open, pulling out all sorts of medical equipment, and my eyes widen, realizing these idiots fully plan on handling this themselves. “What are you doing?” I question. “We need to call an ambulance. He’s going to need surgery.”
Zade grabs Easton’s shirt and tears it off him, and it doesn’t go unnoticed that the charcoal drawing I did this morning is still faintly there. Drawing that feels like a lifetime ago. My gaze lingers on the portrait, and I quickly realize there’s something different about this. It’s not charcoal at all. It’s ink.
My gaze widens, realizing that after taking off on the rooftop today, he went to have my drawing tattooed on his back. Before I can mention it aloud, Zade curses. “Fuck, no exit wound.”
“Shit,” Easton says with a heavy sigh as Dalton takes off to the kitchen again.
“What?” I rush out as Sawyer comes hurrying back through the door, his eyes wide as he glances over Easton, taking in the bullet hole and the blood seeping from it. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Zade says, clenching his jaw as he searches through the first aid supplies and picks out a pair of tweezers that look scary as fuck, “that the bullet is still in there and we’ve gotta go in to get it out.”
My face falls, realizing how painful that’s going to be. I gape at Easton just as Dalton returns with a bottle of whiskey and hands it to him. Easton eagerly lifts it to his lips, not waiting a damn second.
I shake my head in shock. Surely they’re not actually considering doing this themselves. “This is insane,” I tell them as Sawyer joins us, standing at my side. “He needs a doctor.”
“Zade knows what he’s doing,” Sawyer says, before getting a full view of Easton’s back and scoffing. “Man, you’re fucking addicted to ink.”
Easton shakes his head, his eyes getting heavy. “It’s not an addiction unless you’ve sucked dick for it,” he says, just as Zade steps into him, holding the tweezers. My eyes go wide as horror grips my chest. This is really happening.
“Where’s Cara?” Zade asks. “Why wasn’t she helping you?”
Sawyer lets out a frustrated sigh, answering before I get the chance. “The fucker slipped her something. She’s out cold, but all her vitals are fine. She just needs to sleep it off.”
Understanding dawns on me, answering the question I’d wondered about earlier as Easton glances up at me, looking like death warmed over. “Show me your hand.”
I gape at him and reluctantly lift my hand, showing him the deep cuts across my palm from the glass, knowing he needs this distraction. He presses his lips into a hard line before muttering something under his breath. He shakes his head, and before I know it, Dalton scoops up my hand. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” he demands, grabbing another chair and forcing me into it. “You’re going to need stitches.”
“Then drop me off at the hospital,” I say. “And while you’re at it, you can drop Easton off too.”
Zade lets out a huff, not bothering to look my way. “Shut up and let him fix you,” he says. “You’re bleeding all over my apartment.”
I scoff. “Right, because you really give a shit what happens to this apart—AH FUCK,” I cry out as Dalton pours something over my cut, cleaning it out. I try to tear my hand back but he has a death grip on it. “Was that necessary?”
Dalton doesn’t respond as he focuses on what he’s doing, and I watch in horror as he fishes out a needle and thread from the first aid kit. “Tell me you’re gonna do something to numb the pain first?”
Easton scoffs beside me and hands me the bottle of whiskey. “Drink up, Pretty.”
Fuck.
I take the whiskey and bring it to my lips, taking a deep swig as Zade gets to work searching for the bullet lost in Easton’s shoulder. My stomach clenches as the tweezers disappear inside his shoulder, but I keep my stare on it, distracting me from the needle clutched between Dalton’s fingers.
Easton clenches his jaw, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth, reaching for the whiskey and tearing it out of my grasp. He takes a long, drawn-out swig before cutting himself off, his eyes wide as he looks at Sawyer. “Venom,” he says. “She’s not here.”
“Fuck,” Sawyer says, turning on his heel. “I’ll find her.”
I barely get a chance to think about the fact there’s a snake loose in my apartment with my knocked-out roomie when Dalton digs down with the needle, and I realize just how low my pain threshold really is. I cry out and Easton hands me the whiskey once again. I drink up, the liquor burning my throat on its way down. “Fuck me, this hurts so bad.”
Easton scoffs, glancing at me with his brow arched. “You think that hurts?” he questions. “You should try being shot.”
Okay, he has a point. He’s definitely in more pain than I am.
I try to keep my mouth shut when Dalton subtly shakes his head, keeping his attention on my hand. “We can’t keep her safe here.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Zade mutters, digging a little deeper into Easton’s shoulder. “We’re out of options. We need to move her into the penthouse.”
“What?” I demand, my head snapping up, the very thought of living in that big penthouse sending chills sailing down my spine. Even more so now that I’ve seen exactly how cruel Zade really is. “Over my dead fucking body.”
