Page 119 of Chasing Your Ghost

Noah groaned. “You bastard. That’s my stepsister.” He shot Asher a glare. “What happened to the bro code?”

Asher didn’t get the chance to answer him because the sound of sirens had escalated to a deafening pitch.

Ella carefully eased Noah’s head up and out of her lap before getting to her feet. “I’m going to flag them down,” she explained, looking fidgety.

Riley watched her rush out of the backyard. Her long dark hair flew out behind her, the hair tie holding up her messy bun long since fallen out.

“Chris, go with her,” Noah ordered, the command lacking much force with how weak his voice was.

“What?” his friend asked.

“That bastard might still be around. She shouldn’t go off alone.”

He was right, and Riley scolded herself for not realizing it herself. “I’ll take over here,” Riley said, moving around to the other side of Noah and replacing Chris’s hands with her own. The feel of the warm blood-soaked shirt beneath her palms had her stomach turning again, but she willed herself to keep pushing down on the injury even when Noah groaned in pain.

Chris didn’t need further urging, and he ran off after Ella, leaving Riley with her stepbrother and her…boyfriend? She wasn’t sure what to call Asher, the threads of their unusual relationship too difficult to weave and condense into one word.

Asher raised his brows at Noah. “Of all the people to look out for Ella, I didn’t think it would be you.”

“Yeah, well, not wanting her dead isn’t the same as liking her,” he retorted through gritted teeth.

“Mhm,” Riley hummed, trying to ignore that she was causing him a lot of pain. “Is that why you looked so comfortable with your head in her lap?”

He sent her a death stare. “You two were taking your sweet time, so I took what I could get.”

Asher sighed. “Nothing like a near-death experience to bring people closer together.”

Noah grimaced—in pain or something else, Riley wasn’t sure. He closed his eyes, looking beyond exhausted. “I’m pretty sure she hates me more than ever,” he admitted in a tired whisper.

Asher and Riley shared a sad look. Those two seriously needed to sort out their issues, and if this experience didn’t do the trick, then she wasn’t sure anything ever could.

Things seemed to move at breakneck speed when Chris and Ella returned with two police officers and two paramedics.

Riley was forced to the side as the two paramedics got to work assessing Noah and Asher. “Is he going to be okay?” she asked the paramedic who had removed the shirt and was looking at Noah’s wound.

The man nodded. “He’s lost a lot of blood, and he’ll need stitches, but he’ll be just fine. Pressing against the wound probably saved his life.”

Riley felt a wave of shock travel through her body. She’d known the cut was bad, but hearing it could have been fatal was chilling. She watched the two paramedics working, hovering like the nervous wreck she was, but when she heard the officers asking Ella and Chris for a description of Brett, she joined them.

At least she could be of some use there. Maybe she could gain control of her trembling hands if she focused on their questions. One could only hope.

“He’s Caucasian and tall,” Riley told the officers. “Probably around your partner’s height.”

“So about 6 foot 1,” the woman said.

“Yes, and he has short blonde hair.”

“Eye color?”

“Brown,” Ella supplied when Riley hesitated, her arms crossing in a way that showed her discomfort. “They’re light brown.”

The female officer narrowed her eyes, probably picking up on Ella’s uneasiness, but Riley distracted her by saying, “Oh, and I stabbed him in the back if that helps. In his left shoulder blade, to be precise. It was self-defense.” She gestured to her cheek. “He’d just punched me in the face. And he only left a few minutes ago, so he can’t have gotten far.”

The woman stared at Riley for a beat longer than necessary before shaking her head. “Alright, wait here while I call this in.”

The female officer left them in the watchful eyes of their colleague, but Riley was quick to ask him if they could check on their friends. He grunted in acceptance, and she led Chris and Ella away from him and toward where Noah was being placed on a stretcher by the two paramedics.

“We need to get our story straight,” she whispered once they’d reached Asher. “Brett invited me over when I ran into him outside my house.”

---