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“T!”Nick roared in the distance. “For Christ's sake.TOBIAS!”
I jerked my head toward the sound. Desperation took control, forcing me to call out.“Over here!”
Nick's steps were thunderous as he rushed from the trees and relief at the sight of him hit me like a blow. My breath escaped, deflating me in an instant.
I needed him…more than I’d ever realized before.
And from the panic shimmering in Nick’s eyes, I realized he needed me just as much. He glanced at the pale-haired guard dead on the ground not far from us, then turned back to me. Sadness. That’s all I saw, sadness and fucking regret. I looked away.
“She’s gone,” Dad groaned. “I’m sorry, Ryth’s gone.”
I forced the words through clenched teeth. “Like hell she is.”
Nick grabbed Dad, fisting his shirt and wrenched him close. “What the fuck do you mean, she’s gone?”
I wasn’t going to lose her, not again—not now—not ever.
“I’m s-sorry,”Dad slurred.
“Save your fucking sorry,” I snapped as the sound of baying dogs came.
Nick glanced my way, then shoved dad backwards. “We have to get out of here.”
“No.” That nauseating agony came alive through my thigh as I stumbled for the trees. “Not without her.”
“T!”Nick barked, stopping me. “You stay here and you’re fucking dead, you understand that?”
I stared at that darkness, listening to the sound of their dogs.
“How the fuck can you help her then?”
“She’s gone,” Dad mumbled. “It’s no use—”
“Shut the fuck up, Dad!”my brother warned. “Or so help me God, I’ll leave you here to die.”
Leave him…but not her…
I turned to Nick and inhaled hard. Cold air carved all the way through my chest. I couldn’t leave…not without—
“Please, T,” he pleaded, his eyes glistening in the night. “I can’t lose you too.”
It was those words that shattered my resolve. I winced, swallowing a moan of agony, and limped back. “Move.” I shoved our father forward.
But he stumbled, then fell, leaving Nick to grab him at the last second.
“Help me,” my brother demanded, trying to hold his weight.
He was going to kill me…he was going to...“Fuck,” I growled, and slid my arm around his other side.
Hate burned inside me as we stumbled along the dugout and back through the trees. Each step we took was one more away from her. But I couldn’t do anything about that now. Stem the bleeding. Patch the wound. Get more guns, then come back. I clung to that as we stumbled for the fenceline, finding a section that’d been cut.
“Can you hold him here while I get the car?” Nick yanked, opening the gap as wide as he could.
I heaved dad forward. But our father’s movements were weak at best. He collapsed against the ground, his face paling in the moonlight as I shoved him through the gap in the fence to the other side. “You better hurry.”
“I will,” Nick said, and was gone in an instant, limping as he hurried back toward the crash site and the old Charger that sat sideways in the middle of the road, next to the dark sedan that had crashed into us.
“I’m sorry,” my father whispered.
