Page 98 of His Passerotta

I rush to Corey before dropping to my knees and cupping his face, tapping him a few times when his droopy eyelids don’t open.

“Come on, we have to get to the cellar.”

He groans, his head lulling when I shake him. “Corey!”

I grip his shirt, feeling it soaked beneath my fingertips, and look down at his chest in horror. He’s lost a lot of blood.

Lifting his shirt, I can see Bleached-hair bandaged the wound, but whatever he did to close the bullet hole must have ripped because there’s no white left on the bandage. It’s bright red.

“Maksim,” I cry, turning to see him looking toward the exit, ready to run. Several people rush right past us from another room in the house and sprint out the front door, machine guns pointed straight ahead.

Maksim seems reluctant, hesitating for a few moments, but he finally lowers his weapon and crouches next to Corey.

And it’s a mistake.

A bullet slices through his arm, and he falls forward, his head crashing against the wall. A man wearing a gray beanie has his gun raised to Maksim, but I yank Maksim by his shirt out of the line of fire just as the gun goes off.

I point my gun at the man and squeeze the trigger, ending yet another person’s life. It doesn’t gut me. Not yet. But it will.

“Fuck.” Maksim turns to press his back against the wall, cradling his arm.

He closes his eyes, his teeth gritting while I try to rouse Corey. “Come on, come on…” I grab his shirt and shake.

“You’re gonna have to wake him up,” Maksim says as if I wasn’t already trying to do that. “I can’t carry him.”

In a fit of desperation, I rear my palm back and slap it across Corey’s face. He cringes and turns his head, finally waking up.

“Hurry it up, princess.”

“I’m fucking trying!”

Corey blinks his eyes open, and I take his face in my hands. “I need you to get up. We have to go.”

“B?”

“Come on!” Another shot goes off when Maksim fires the gun at whoever is at my back, but I don’t even turn around. I take Corey’s wrists and try to lift him up with me as I stand, but he can’t seem to get his balance.

“Maksim,” I whimper, turning his way.

He looks between me and the others in the room then curses under his breath. He takes the gun in his wounded arm, cringing as he does, and holds it at the ready. Using his good arm, he takes Corey’s bicep and hauls him up while I help with the other arm, only to drop him when Maksim has to fire yet again.

He yells out in pain at what I’m guessing is the gun’s recoil, and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Bailey,” he says, seeming genuine as he meets my eyes.

He faces the exit, and when he takes a step that way, I try to grab at his ankle. “No!”

He easily evades me and heads toward the open doorway behind two gang members, his gun held firm in his good hand. They won’t know what hit them.

Turning back to Corey, I clutch his arm and lift. “Come on, you have to get up!”

Gunfire starts behind us now, at the back of the house it sounds, and I flop to the floor when several gang members rush down the steps to the cellar, only to be met with gunfire.

They’re in the cellar.

They’re out front.

They’re everywhere.

I’m too late.

---