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Seyla clamped her teeth together as he swept her hair over one shoulder to find the bullet hole.
“It only went through the muscle of your shoulder. I know it hurts, but you’ll live.”
Seyla laughed, then moaned at the resulting pain. “It doesn’t feel that way.”
Jax ripped away part of his t-shirt and balled it up to press on the wound.
She yelped.
“Sorry. I have to slow the bleeding.” After a few minutes, he wrapped the makeshift bandage around her right shoulder and arm several times and tied it. “Hopefully, that will hold off the blood flow until help gets here.”
Jax put his hands on both sides of her cheeks. Pressed his forehead against hers. Seyla could feel his warm breath on her face. Joy that he was alive rushed through her.
He rubbed a thumb against her cheek, tilting his head to the side. “I thought I lost you. Why would you do that for me? Why would you sacrifice your own life for me?” His voice ran rough with emotion.
“I—” Seyla blinked and looked up at him. She recoiled in horror at the sight of Chase lifting a board over his head to smash it down on Jax’s head. At impact, Jax slammed into her, knocking her onto her back. She rolled him to her left side. Chase raised the board again and brought it crashing down. It narrowly missed them, hammering into the gap between her head and Jax’s head. The board splintered with a loud crack. Chase lifted it, repositioning it in his hands like a knife in order to stab Jax with the sharp, splintered end..
He’d kill him.
Adrenaline flooded Seyla. She rolled to her left side and drove her right heel into the side of his left knee as hard as she could one, two, three times. Chase howled. The board clatteredonto the wooden walkway to the side of them. Chase crashed to the wooden planks of the walkway as well, clutching his knee. Seyla kicked at his shoulder and missed. Chase’s hand shot out, grappling to locate the splintered plank. Again, Seyla kicked at his shoulder, hitting her target this time. He fell backward over Jax’s legs and hit the walkway.
She realized her error too late.
Chase landed next to the splintered board. He grabbed it and scrambled forward, then lunged at her with the weapon. Seyla switched to her right side, bringing the heel of her left hand upward. Using his momentum against him, she struck his nose. He cried out, dropping the plank, then grabbed his nose and fell back. Seyla jerked her leg back to strike again when the now-familiar crackle of the stun gun resounded through the air.
Chase lay on the boards next to Jax, his muscles constricting, frozen in a fetal position.
Behind him, Janet lay bleeding on the walkway, the stun gun in one outstretched hand.
“Thank you,” Seyla whispered, though the woman appeared to be unconscious.
The effort to stun Chase must have caused so much pain she’d fainted. Janet may have hated her and wanted her gone, but the woman loved the sanctuary.
Thank you, Lord, for help from the last person I would expect it from.
Jax moved beside her. Seyla checked his head when he sat up, groaning.
“Are you okay? He whacked you with a board..”
A faint click echoed through the night. They both jerked their heads up. Janet had regained consciousness and had the gun pointed at Chase.
“Don’t do it, Janet. Please,” Seyla begged.
Janet’s eyes glittered with tears. “He threatened my boy. He threatened the sanctuary. He deserves to die.” Her hands shook, whether from pain, hysteria, or a mix of both.
Would Janet turn the gun on them next? Seyla’s mouth went dry with fear. Even if Janet planned to shoot Chase, her hands shook so bad she might hit any of them. “It’s over, Janet. Chase can’t hurt your son or the sanctuary ever again.”
“He killed Hannah Ponz and Laurel Anderson. Along with his own father.” Janet sniffled. The gun dropped a few inches. “I can’t let him hurt my boy.”
Jax put his hands out in an entreating position. “You’re right, Janet. Chase has done a lot of bad things. Thanks to you, though, it’s over now. He can’t hurt anyone anymore. Now you need to be there for your son. I don’t want you to go to jail for shooting an unarmed man. Who would be there for your son then? Think about that, Janet. Who will be there to protect your son if you’re in jail? He needs you. Chase will go to prison for his crimes. You, though, you could be a material witness and get a deal. Don’t blow that chance. Think, Janet. Think hard about your son. Think about a life behind bars without him.”
Janet gave a guttural cry and dropped the gun. Jax crawled forward and snatched it up, along with the stun gun. He removed the suppressor, then squeezed off two shots in the dirt of the employee path between the animal enclosures. “That should alert people to get over here pretty quick,” he ground out, gingerly touching the back of his head.
After securing Chase’s hands behind him with shoelaces, Jax ripped away a section of Chase’s shirt. Seyla pressed the balled-up cloth against the wound in Janet’s right side, and the woman fainted again.
“How are you alive?” Seyla shook her head, unable to make sense of it. “He injected you with over sixty milliliters ofpropofol. I saw it. How could you be conscious, let alone able to overtake him?”
“I don’t know much regarding medical stuff, but I do know that only the thin, tiny plastic sleeve of a catheter stays in the vein after it’s placed.” Jax scrunched his nose. “I’ve left the hospital a little ahead of a doctor’s orders in the past. I’ve also been told I’m a bad patient.”
