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Grey stirredatop the thin cot, his face pinching as he woke.
His skin puckered where the surgical tape held the clean bandage against the garish wound where his right eye used to be.
Rook jerked his chin up, discarding the blade he’d been using to carve twelve more kill lines into the flesh of his right forearm. We left our silent vigil by the front window of Sanctum now allowing cold dawn light to filter through the tinted glass.
“He’s waking up,” Rook rumbled, lurching in Grey’s direction, his leg fucked from not one but two bullet-wounds, one that would’ve shattered his knee-cap if it had hit just a few inches higher.
Grey coughed and Rook bent to slide a hand beneath his shoulders, helping him sit up. I moved for the glass of water set on the floor beside the cot and passed it over, concealing a wince at the sharp pain in my abdomen. “Drink,” I ordered, not caring that the noise was waking the other injured Saints laid up on cots throughout the entire floor of the bar.
The smell of lead and injury was so strong it managed to overpower the usual reek of stale liquor permeating these walls.
Grey choked down some of the water, his one eye focusing slowly on us as he pushed through the haze of drugs our vet had to use to keep his ass down.
I pressed a hand to the bandage on my lower stomach, feeling the ridge of wiry stitches through the gauze as I rose back to my full height. I couldn’t remember the vet digging out the bullet, but I could feel the phantom memory of his sharp tools where they’d scraped and nudged and pulled between major organs. Sewing back together bits of my insides and my outsides.
“Where is she?” Grey croaked and my jaw tightened, teeth clicking from the pressure.
Rook’s fingers curled over Grey’s shoulder, squeezing, but our youngest brother’s eye remained trained squarely on me. As if he somehow knew her leaving was my fault regardless of the fact he was unconscious, near fucking death, when I’d said what I said to her.
“She took off. Isn’t answering any of our calls,” I said in a low voice, struggling to keep it steady. “I sent Drake to look for her hours ago. He texted just before dawn to say he couldn’t find her.”
Grey nodded solemnly, his eye narrowing as he considered that.
“She blamed herself for this,” he said, lifting a hand to gently brush the bandage with a grimace.
“She had help,” Rook hissed, his dark gaze sliding to me before returning to Grey.
Anger flared Grey’s nostrils and tightened the lines around his mouth as he shook his head slow. “She’ll come back. She won’t leave us,” he said with conviction. “She can’t.”
Rook nodded his agreement. “Yeah, man. She’ll be back when she’s ready.”
Grey’s shoulders sagged and for the first time he allowed himself to see the quiet chaos surrounding us all. “How many did we lose?”
“Eight,” Rook replied.
“Fuck.”
“Injured?”
“What you see here. Vet says everyone’ll make it, but Vance won’t walk again.”
I turned to the window, staring out into the early morning as though I could will Ava Jade to appear through the thin fog still clinging to the street.
She would be back.
She had to come back.
My throat burned, and I swallowed hard to snuff the aching, licking my dry lips and tasting blood. No way of telling if it belonged to myself or someone else.
Since we got back, none of us left this space save for Diesel and a small group of uninjured Saints and Kings. They went to see to the clean-up, make sure no one escaped alive.
“Hey,” Becca said weakly, her voice thin and groggy as she padded barefoot through the cots of sleeping gangsters from the back room where we’d put her. She winced when she saw Grey but quickly covered it up with a small smile. “You’re awake,” she said. “Does that mean…”
“He’s going to be fine,” Rook confirmed gruffly, the words carrying with them a finality, as though Grey’s survival was entirely up to him and he’d already made the call. Daring the reaper totryto come and claim a soul that was ours.
Grey’s lips turned up at one corner. He cocked his head at Becca as she tucked a long strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Does it look that bad?” he asked.
She started, shaking her head vehemently. “What? No. No, it’s,um…”
