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“Go,” Genevieve said, her voice barely audible. I listened despite the growing knots in my stomach.
Across the hall, it was fucking chaos. Declan sat in a corner, rubbing a hand over his chest while Cade crouched beside him to talk him through a panic attack. Finn stood off to the side, hands tucked under his armpits and looking visibly distressed—not that I blamed the kid.
Sam and Lucas hovered close as Connor and Cecilia took care of Nolan on the table. Except Connor was fucking wearing a heavy pair of leather gloves as he attempted to grab one of the spikes drilled into Nolan’s skin. The metal burned bright at the contact.
“Son of a bitch!” Connor howled, stepping back and shaking out his hand. Nolan seized with a painful cry, his back arching off the table. Sam and Lucas rushed in to help Cecelia hold him still. Connor tossed the gloves aside and massaged the welt on his palm. “Even through the leather, I feel the burn.”
Fucking magic.
“I don’t know anyone in town who has the experience to get these out and is human,” Cecelia said tightly. “We need to make a plan fast.”
“You,” Lane pointed at me from his damn near invisible spot, “where the fuck is Beau?”
“Waiting room,” I said. He strode two long steps into the hall and started yelling.
“Beau, I need kit-B from your car!”
“One kit-B comin’ on up!” Beau called back. Fuck, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what the fuck kit-B was.
“Out of the way, sweetheart. We’ll handle this.” Lane took Cecelia by the shoulders and moved her forcefully. Beau was fucking fast, rounding into the room before she could even protest. Lane grabbed a rolling cart and dumped the shit off it, ignoring Ceclia’s angry exclamations. The hard case that Beau laid out was daunting. I knew what Lane was into, which made the fact that he had different cases terrifying as fuck. “Do you remember Kalahari?”
“I remember the fuckin’ waterslides?” Beau replied, cracking a grin.
“Other part of Kalahari.”
“Vividly.”
“We’re doing that backwards,” Lane told him. When he flipped open the case to reveal an extensive medical drill kit clearly custom designed with more add-ons than I’d ever seen for a fucking drill. My stomach turned, and the room wavered.
“Why do you have that?” Cecelia asked.
“You don’t want to know,” I whispered. Neither did I.
“We work fast.” Lane ignored us. I watched as he worked quickly to outfit the drill, matching up pieces with the spikes until he found the right one. “I’ll get them out, you cover him up. I need your fucking draw hands, Beau.”
“Yipee-ki-yay.” He chuckled darkly.
When Beau grabbed gauze pads, Lane slid on a pair of fucking goggles. When Lane tested the drill, Beau put on gloves. They were fucking terrifying with how in sync they were.
“You can’t do that!” Cecelia exclaimed when Lane started in on the first one. The whir of the drill is nauseating.
I grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the way.
“Darlin’, you act like you’re somethin’ special, but you ain’t. We can do what you do. And we’re better at takin’ them apart,” Beau boasted like it was something to be proud of. “Lane, here, went to medical school three times in three different decades. I followed him around—”
“Beau,” Lane snarled, never looking up. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good boy.”
They fell into a silent routine as Lane rapidly unscrewed the first spike. Jesus fucking Christ, how deep had she drilled it into Nolan’s bone? Bile stung the back of my throat at the smell of burning hair that filled the room. It was a scent I never wanted to know and one I’d never fucking forget. The relay of Nolan’s heart on the monitor was daunting—an unsteady beep threatening to fail on any given notice.
“Oh, my baby!” Mom let out a strangled cry when she appeared in the doorway. Oh fuck. Not the thing for her to walk in on. Lucas moved fast, catching her and holding her tight.
I dragged in a painful breath. The emotion in the room was overwhelming enough, but Mom never fell apart. Listening to her do so? That was fucking devastating.
Lane and Beau were efficient in their silence. For every spike Lane drilled out, Beau was quick to tape down gauze. But the problem was the bleeding. There was so much blood, and they weren’t stopping it. They were just putting fucking tape over it.
