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Andy is already jumping up and rushing over, but I keep my blurry gaze on Gideon.
“I love you,” I croak as Andy grabs my head and peels back my lids. Fyre is beside me in an instant, and I think he’s holding my hand, but I’m not sure.
“Charlotte, stay with me. Andy is going to fetch that blood. Youstayhere. With me. Got it?”
I want to more than anything in the world, but something is pulling me under. I’m so tired, so empty, so fuckingbroken.I can’t fight it anymore. I don’twantto fight. Knowing Fyre has Red in his power, that he’ll make him suffer, and that he’ll keep fighting the good fight long after I’m gone…it’s enough for me to let go. I just wish I could have seen Fyre’s adorable Lab one last time.
Just before the last of my vision fades, I whisper, “Give Arrow a kiss for me.”
26
FYRE
“Wait.” Andy holds up a hand, peeking around the corner, and then beckons me to follow. Charlotte’s head lolls to the side as the girl—now clothed in a proper, if slightly risqué, nurse’s outfit—careens into the hallway with the wheelchair.
Andy knows her way around Pervert Palace, all right. She leads us through walkways hidden behind the walls, making a vague comment about how Red didn’t always want the help visible. I’m sure the fact that he himself regularly has to dispose of dead bodies has nothing to do with it.
I follow behind her as fast as I can, sending another silent prayer of thanks into the world for the fact that the gurney’s wheels are well oiled.
We stripped Red naked and tossed him on the gurney, covering his upper body with a thin black rubber mat we found in the medical playroom. It wasn’t large enough to cover everything, but wheeling Master Red around with his dick flopping this way and that leaves my heart just that much fuller. But if anyone sees his fire-ravaged face, we’ll be in deep shit.
Thankfully, we haven’t encountered anyone yet, but I can’t count on Lady Luck sticking around the whole night. We’ve got to save up our good fortune for what’s to come.
“Stay here. I need to speak to Rick,” Andy says when we emerge into purple twilight at the back of the mansion. There’s a guy up ahead wearing all black, smoking a cigarette as he leans against the wall with one foot propped up beneath him. He grins when he sees Andy, but that expression slips a little when he looks over and spots me standing by the gurney and wheelchair. I’m still wearing my robe and mask. I doubt I could pull off the cute little nurse’s outfit Andy’s wearing.
Rick nods a few times, and then hurries away at a brisk pace. Andy rushes back to us, lifting the blanket bundled on Charlotte’s lap to check my fiancée’s bandages, and the three bags of blood Andy stole from Red’s private blood bank.
It’s a miracle I remembered Charlotte’s blood type from her file. Then again, I could probably transcribe her entire patient history from memory once my mind was clear again.
At least the hallucinations have stopped.
Andy wheels Charlotte in the direction Rick disappeared, and I follow hastily, all too aware of the myriad windows at my back. All it’ll take is one person glancing out and seeing us for our cover to be blown.
We make it to the garage a few yards away without incident, and wait as Rick reverses out a black van. A chill runs through me when I realize there are four more exactly like it beside the Ferraris and Lambos and Aston Martins. Are they all Red’s, or do some of these belong to his guests? I have the insane urge to throw gas on everything and light a match.
I’ve always enjoyed setting things on fire. Irony, or fate? Who the fuck knows.
“We’d better get where we’re going fast,” Andy whispers to me as Rick helps us get the gurney into the back. “His vitals are dropping.”
Rick slams the door closed, and then pinches Andy’s ass before he walks away. She rolls her eyes when she catches me looking. “He’s not a bad guy. I don’t think he has a clue of what’s happening inside there.”
I’m pretty sure he does, but there’s no way I’m shattering the one good memory she has of this place. Charlotte is unconscious, and we gently move her into the back beside the flattened gurney. For an awful second, I picture Red waking up and attacking her as I’m driving, but as if Andy reads my mind, she hops into the back of the van before I can close the door.
“You sure?”
She nods. “I have to keep an eye on them anyway.” Those eyes droop. “But I mean it, Gideon. Hurry.”
I nod and rush to the front of the van, climbing into the driver’s seat and hurriedly turning into the road. Andy raps on the partition between us, and I slide it open without taking my eyes off the road. I turn on the console, trying to figure out from the GPS just where in the hell we are.
“One question,” she says, raising her voice over the clatter of the gurney as we race over the cobblestoned path leading out of the manor grounds.
“Yeah?” Fuck, we’re forty minutes away from my house, and I’m not even sure it’ll be safe for us to go there.
“Who’s Arrow?”
My heart seizes up so tight, I can barely breathe. I give her a smile in the rearview mirror. “You’re going to love her.”
EPILOGUE - CHARLOTTE
