Page 78 of Ruthless Reign

“We need to get you to the hospital.”

She jerked out of my grip, falling to the floor, her hands floundering around her friend as her soft sobs turned to louder sounds. Sounds so raw it hurt to hear them in a way I didn’t think I could be hurt anymore.

“I-I can’t l-leave him here.”

“Hardin?” It was Zade’s voice that filled the space. I hadn’t heard him coming over Hawk’s crying. Over the thudding in my ears.

“What the fuck happened here?” Pope asked, entering behind Zade, his eyes filled with horror as he took in Toby and Becca now crouched over him, struggling to catch her breath.

“Séamas,” I said. “She said it was Séamas.”

And then I bent low, peeling her stiff fingers from where they clung to Toby’s back. He might have been dead, but she was still alive and I was going to fucking keep it that way. That wound in her leg looked like it was still bleeding. I wasn’t going to risk it. He could’ve nicked an artery.

“It’s okay, Hawk,” I said as she fought me, surprised at the soft tone of my own voice. “Come on, let go.”

I clutched her to my chest as soon as I got her free of his corpse and she shoved at me but I only held her tighter. “It’s not okay,” she sneered, her voice muffled against my shirt. “Nothing is okay. Nothing is ever going to be okay.”

My phone rang and I wrenched it from my pocket, not bothering to hide my annoyance as I tossed it to Zade to answer.

He took the call, nodding and muttering replies while Becca melted into me, the fight going out of her one breath at a time. When she was calm enough, I swept her up into my arms to get her off the leg.

“It was supposed to be me,” she muttered almost unintelligibly. “It should’ve been me.”

“Kaleb’s awake,” Zade said, coming over to tuck my phone back into my pocket. “I told them you’re on your way and need a doc on standby for the girl.”

I started to move and Becca shifted in my arms. “No. Wait! We can just leave him there like that. We can’t just?—”

Zade put a hand on her arm, making her jump.

“We’re going to take care of your friend,” he told her, and I saw the burn of anger and some other emotion in his eyes I almost failed to recognize. Until I remembered that barely two weeks ago Dad and Zade buried their best friend, too, and I knew that it was a shared understanding of this loss. This grief.

Becca nodded slowly, giving them permission to help with Toby.

I felt her sag against me as we crossed the threshold and went out into the stairwell. Her chest still spasmed with phantom sobs, but the farther we got from the carnage upstairs, the more her tears dried. The blanker her stare became.

Fuck. Was she going into shock?

“Tell me we’re going to kill him,” she said, shocking the hell out of me with the evenness of her tone after I set her in the passenger seat.

Her brown eyes were backlit with auburn flame.

“Yes,” I told her. “We’re going to kill him, baby. That’s a promise.”

KALEB

“They just pulled up,” Dad said, peering through the window of my hospital room, set fifteen stories above the emergency entrance. “So you can stop your fuckin’ squirming.”

“How does she look? Is she okay?”

My throat scraped with a hoarse dryness that begged for a solid cough, but I stifled it, swallowing with bared teeth. Coughing would only make the pain worse and possibly open my stitches. The ones on the inside and the outside.

Dad’s face hardened as he watched something out the window I couldn’t see and I felt my stomach churn. “What? What is it?”

“Kaleb,” Ma chastised, and I felt her hands on my shoulders, trying to keep me down as I moved to sit up. “Stay fucking still or so help me…”

She trailed off, but the threat in her tone combined with the stabbing ache in my chest had me settling back against the raised backing of the hospital bed. She’d already let me have it over the fact I wasn’t wearing a vest. She wouldn’t hear any of my excuses even though the truth was I would’ve worn the fucking thing if it was under the back seats in the Bronco where I always kept it. But when we pulled up it wasn’t there and it wasn’t like I was about to ask if anyone had a spare. They would’ve just given me theirs right off their back. I wouldn’t have anyone trading their life for mine.

“Dad,” I snarled. “How bad is it?”

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