Page 150 of Captive Omega

I don’t see a thing. Just squeaky clean, white polished floors under my feet, black-suited deathly quiet men around me as we move through the hallways.

Pop.

Blaine angles his body slightly and says softly, but firmly, “Abort.”

And then they propel me back out of the courtroom. I’m looking at Blaine, wondering what the hell is going on when Vaughn says quietly, “Head down, Resa.”

I lower my head as questions bubble up in my mind.

Blaine slides back into the Hummer. Frost urges me in, but he doesn’t enter, slamming the door after me. Vaughn is already in the passenger seat and Garrison starts the engine and tears out of the parking lot the second my door closes.

And I have no clue why we’re leaving at all.

“Blaine?” Garrison quietly asks as he speeds down the road. Vaughn has a gun in his lap, head swiveling from right to left.

“I’m hit,” Blaine responds in a calm tone.

I nearly give myself whiplash. “Hit? By what? I didn’t…”

The soft pop.

He has his hand low on his right side. Now that I’m paying attention, his face is paler than it was before. He doesn’t look like he’s in pain, but when someone says they’ve been hit, that means shot. Right?

Garrison never takes his eyes off the road as we flow through traffic. “How bad?”

Vaughn tucks his gun somewhere I don’t see and twists around.

Blaine is breathing harder now, his voice tense. “It slipped past the vest. The bleeding is getting heavier.”

I stare at him, frozen.

“I’m going to need you to scoot over, beautiful,” Vaughn says, scaring the shit out of me.

As Garrison speeds through the city, Vaughn squeezes through the front seats and takes my position in the middle, bending to grab something from under the passenger seat. A bright red first aid kit.

He has his back to me, hunched over Blaine so I don’t see what he does.

Blaine grunts and Vaughn laughs, “Quit being a baby. It’s just a scratch.”

Before I can snap at him that a bullet is hardly a scratch, my eyes lock on Garrison’s in the rearview mirror. He subtly shakes his head. I close my mouth.

Vaughn’s back is tense. More than it was a second ago.

I was getting ready to stab Blaine before. The thought of losing him… of him dying is like someone jammed a fist in my throat and I can’t breathe.

He can’t die. I’m allowed to kill him. Just me. No one else.

I curl my fingers into fists, nails cutting into my palms as Vaughn quietly works to stop Blaine’s bleeding.

No one can kill him.

Not Blaine. He’s not allowed to die.

Chapter 43

Resa

Sadie is waiting outside the clinic, along with three nurses in scrubs and a stretcher. Her expression is so calm I struggle to believe anyone could stay that calm in a crisis.

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