AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I want you behind me.” Drake manhandles me, but takes care not to let me fall or hurt my leg. “This placecoincidentallyswarming with bodies at the same time you’re here doesn’t work for me.”
“Accidents happen,” I murmur. “Car pile-ups especially happen during rush hour in a city this size.”
“And yet…” He makes damn sure his body shields mine as the doors open and reveal a parking lot… exactly how it was when we were last here. No gunman waiting to kill me. No vans filled with bad guys readying to hurt me. “It stinks, Malone.” He doesn’t move, despite the utter stillness of the area outside our elevator. “This whole thing stinks.”
“Yeah.” Archer inches forward and peeks into the garage to check our blind spots. Silence hangs heavy. Almosttooheavy, but he slips out of the elevator with his gun drawn, Detective Fletcher just two steps behind him.
They’re here to protect me. Sure. But they’re going to protect each other first and foremost. And that brotherhood, that camaraderie, softens the wall I’ve built up around my heart where these two are concerned.
Maybe I don’t know them, which makes it hard to trust them. And maybe Drake doesn’t trust them—even though hedoesknow them. This uncertainty means I look to Drake for answers long before I look to them. But as they fan out now, my view only what I catch around Drake’s broad shoulders, their protectiveness of each other makes them easier to trust.
They’re loyal men. They’re kind. And they’re professional and competent.
“Bring her out.” Archer’s voice drips with doubt. With anger, though I’m not entirely sure where he’s aiming it. “Change of plans, Officer Clay. Get the car.”
“Yes, Detective.”
The young officer darts out of the elevator while Drake brings me toward the lip, his foot in the way of the doors closing again. His breath is even. Strong. His gun-holding hand is steady, and the other, wrapped around my arm, is tight. Almost bruising.
I watch as Officer Clay approaches the car we arrived in, parked an easy thirty-feet from the elevators, and opens the door to slide in. This entrance isn’t where emergency vehicles arrive. It’s not even where patients and their visitors come. This is purely the parking lot for first responders to leave their cars while they’re heading inside for a twenty-four-hour shift.
“Let’s go.” Drake’s eyes swing everywhere at once, but he tugs me out of the elevator and onto concrete so smooth the soles of my sneakers squeak with every step I take. “You’re sliding into the back seat,” he coaches me. “Straight into the middle. Officer Clay is driving. I’m sitting in the back beside you. Detectives Malone and Fletcher can decide who rides shotgun and who’s in the back with us. But you’re in the middle, Aurora. Covered on all sides.”
“I’ll ride in the back.” Archer strides closer as Clay brings the car to us and the wheels squeak against the floor. When it’s at a stop, he opens the door at the same moment Clay opens his. “Get in,” he commands me. “I’ll walk around the other side.”
“Ms. Swanson.” Officer Clay holds the door for me with a sweet, boyish smile that might play in my mind for the rest of my life. His smooth-shaven skin, and his perfect teeth, except for one slightly off-center canine tooth. His eyes are friendly, and his demeanor matches. Unlike the detectives who surround me with constant vigilance. “Watch your head—”
The thunder of gunshots rings out and echoes off the walls like cannon blasts. Officer Clay’s smile turns to a grimace that’ll haunt me forever, and the heat of something painful passes by my arm. But it’s his body, so young and strong, faltering, that my mind locks on to. “Oh shit!” I throw my hands up and cover my mouth. I don’t know why. I don’t know what it could possibly achieve. But it helps because Drake’s heavy hand slams onto the back of my neck to shove me down. And if my mouth wasn’t guarded when I hit the door, I might’ve lost teeth.
“Get down!” he booms as Clay collapses, shooting off a round in a direction I’ll never see. Drake crushes me to the concrete floor despite my bad leg and pulls the trigger twice more. Three times.
“Officer down!” Fletcher shouts into his radio. He skids to a stop so his leg slams into mine and his cologne fills my lungs, then he flips Officer Clay to his back and presses his hands to the cop’s shoulder.
To a gun wound.
“Oh god.” Tears burn my eyes and my heart thunders. But I swallow the lump in my throat and push myself for calm. To slow my breathing and focus. “We need to pack his wound.”
My hands shake, but I crawl closer and remember the clinics I’ve watched over the last few years at school. The classwork I’ve already completed. I’ve already got a lot of the theory down for what my future holds, so I yank my hoodie off despite the cold of the underground parking lot and press it over Detective Fletcher’s crimson hands. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
“You’re a medical student, right?” He takes his hands from beneath mine and presses them on top to add pressure. “You can help him?”
“Yes. No!” I panic when he pushes to his knees and turns with his gun to shoot off a round. I don’t know how many people shootatus. I don’t know how many guns point my way. But I do know that if I wasn’t here, neither would they. “We need to leave so the doctors can come down and get him. Drake!” I twist my head to find the man standing over me. His feet on either side of my body, so he stands directly above me. I hold the hoodie against Clay’s wound and focus on the fact it’s not bleeding through yet. He’s hurt, but he won’t die of blood loss.
Yet.
Grabbing Drake’s pants leg, I give it a tug, though I know it’s not safe for him to take his eyes off those who attack us. “We have to get him in the elevator and upstairs.”
“They’re coming.” He squeezes off another round, this time hitting his mark, as the dull thud of metal piercing skin makes my stomach jump. He grabs me by the arm and yanks me to my feet so my shoulder screams and threatens to detach. My hands leave Clay’s body. The hoodie lies listlessly on the man’s chest, and bright red stains my fingers. My palms. “Malone!” he shouts, slamming the back door shut on the car and pushing the driver’s door wider. “You and Fletcher need to get Clay inside. Pick the shooter up and toss him in, too.” Then he shoves me through the driver’s door so I land with a slam that makes the scream in my arm turn into the real thing.
Out loud and gurgled because it hurts so much.
My leg sings with a torment that makes me sick, and the steel bar in my thigh fights against a bone that wants to bend.
“Get in, Aurora!” Drake picks up my legs and pushes me across to the passenger seat, then he smacks his palm to the back of my head and shoves me down just as a bullet whizzes through the windshield andfwop’s through the headrest to blow out the other side. “Stay down.” He pulls his door shut and attempts to turn the engine over. Though it’s already going, so the car groans against its abuse and threatens to give out completely. “I’m taking her out,” he calls through the window to Fletcher. “Secure the shooter.” Slamming the gear stick into drive and stomping on the accelerator, Drake has the car’s wheels spinning on the smooth concrete for so long, that I worry we’ll never move.
But once the tires find traction, we take off like a shot. My body flings around, front and back, as he starts and slows. Side-to-side as he brings us around tight corners and speeds through the artificial light toward freedom.
He drives with his weapon still in his hand and blood on his fingers, but he wrenches us around a corner and flings us up the ramp and onto the hospital driveway.
