Page 22 of Root

Once she sees the blood, Rose swoops in to help me hold her up. “She’s bleeding! Get Mia.”

I look at Nikolai. Jess is breathing a little shallower, and even though she looks more annoyed than anything else, most of the color has drained from her overly made-up face.

“This is Jess, the bartender. She helped me get out of a scrap alive, and well… we need to help her. I fucked up, Nikolai. I know I did. Even worse, she said it’s gang related.”

“You bought a gang banger here?” Nikolai asks, brows raised.

Rose glares. “Niko.”

“She said I was being watched, so I left, and then I was jumped. She helped; she stabbed a guy in the neck.”

“Fuck.” Nikolai motions to the house. “Fuck, Rush.”

“Yeah, I know.”

A gang member bleeding out. She didn’t see it, but I did, all that blood when he went down.

“She got stabbed,” I go on as Jess’s eyelids begin to drop, and her body grows more limp in my arms. Fear grips me. “Shit! Nikolai!”

“We’re losing her,” Rose says.

Too much blood loss.

“I’m not a babysitter, Rush. We intervene, and this is going to cause a lot more shit. You know this.” Nikolai doesn’t look so sure, but I need to do something—help her in some way—because now, she’s going to be on the gang’s shit list, all because I didn’t follow protocol.

“Niko, stop,” Rose bites out. “We can’t just let the poor girl die.”

Nikolai just stares, saying nothing at all. I can see the wheels in his head turning.

Just then, Jess’s legs fully give out, and I swoop her up, cradling her in my arms and taking the rest of the load from Rose. Her head falls back, lost in unconsciousness.

“Please, Nikolai,” I beg. “It’s my fault. Please.”

I’m fully aware that he’s had to clean up after my mistakes too many times to count, but this…this isn’t just about me. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if Jess died, not after she saved me.

“Here we fucking go again.” Another tense minute passes, and finally, Nikolai rubs a hand over his face, seeming to have aged another five years in this one moment. Then, he sighs. “Fine. Bring her inside.”

CHAPTER SIX

Jess

Everything aches. Like every-fucking-thing. From my right foot’s little toe that I swear to the Valkyries themselves was stomped on by an overweight elephant to my damn eyelashes.

How do eyelashes hurt?

I’ve had hangovers, but nothing quite like this.

I breathe in and go still.

The air doesn’t smell like my crap studio that smells like freaking stale oil and yesterday’s fries, courtesy of the fast foot joint that lives below me in Queenstown’s BoHo strip. The smell that’s cheap food and cheaper liquor and mid-priced hookers.

The drugs are overpriced in BoHo, but that’s the same everywhere. It just depends where the deal’s happening that dictates exactly how much the inflation’s going to be.

I know. I used to sell back when I ran with the Devil’s Demons. Not so much the Sirens, but—I stop, breathe in, trying to get my head together.

The room.

It isn’t mine.

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