Page 155 of Daddy By Design

“Fuck. Sorry, begging your pardon.”

“Oh, I’ll be saying fuck for the duration. What’s your name?”

“I’m Jenny. Let me just get another set of hands over here.” She popped up and disappeared.

The floor sparkled and shimmered as blood slipped over my shoulder. I blinked against the smoke and dabbed at my eye to find blood dripping from my head too. There was no way I was going out like this. I’d just finally found someone who made this stupid world worth living for.

And a kid.

Couldn’t forget the kid.

I shook my head against the tunnel vision coming for me.

“Okay, we’re back. I’ve got Adam here to help me.”

I flattened both of my hands on the floor, ready to help push this thing up and off me. “You promise Dahlia is out of here.”

“She’s in the bus—er, ambulance outside. She’s safe.”

“Okay.” That was what mattered. “And Lyric?”

“Working on it. Let’s just worry about you, huh?” Adam’s voice brooked no argument.

I wasn’t really great at that, but I wasn’t going down in this candy store. Not today, dammit.

“Okay, I’m going to lift this big bitch onto my shoulder and Jenny is going to take a look at that shoulder and make sure we can get you free.”

“Got it.”

“Here we go.”

It shocked me how fast it came up. What the hell kind of jacked-up dude was this Adam guy?

All too quickly, it was followed by a searing pain. I didn’t want to scream, but I didn’t have a choice.

Jenny swiftly ducked under and deemed me good enough for moving forward. I tried to help her, but the nerves in my hip decided this was the perfect time to be damn uncooperative.

Adam gave a mighty roar and shoved the gummy bear station off me, and it crashed into the floor. The whole room shuddered again.

“I can’t get to her!” Jensen’s voice dented the fog in my brain.

Jenny hauled me free of the case as the scent of melting gummy bears and God knew what else lit the room.

“Lyric?” I asked as I tried to get off the floor.

“We’re on it. We’ll get her out.” Adam hauled me off the ground and onto the stretcher. “You’re a big fucker.” His voice was distorted from his face mask.

“Same to you, dude.” I slapped my hand over my eyes against the smoke and the water coming down. Against the pain crawling down my skull to my neck.

I couldn’t see straight with the migraine crashing down on me. All I could see was flames and the chaos of voices, and then there was nothing but clean air and blinding sun.

After the acrid smoke of the room, it was jarring enough for me to cover my eyes with my forearm. “Dahlia?”

“Here!”

EMTs and firefighters were all talking around me. Shouting orders and rolling me off the stretcher onto a gurney.

“Ma’am, you can’t get in here with him.”

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