Page 35 of Perilous Healing

I fire.

He grunts as the bullet hits its mark, tearing through the flesh of his leg, but he keeps moving, albeit slower than before.

I sprint toward him as he disappears from sight. By the time I get behind the building, he’s gone. And then tires screech against the pavement. I leap to the side, barely managing not to get hit as a vehicle speeds past me and out of view.

“No!”

“Bianca!” Silas is at my side.

“He got away. No plates. Dark sedan.” I’m all business, quickly reciting the information I have so I don’t forget it.

“You’ve been shot!” He yanks the button-down shirt from his torso, ripping the buttons as he wraps my arm with the once-clean fabric. “What were you thinking?”

“That I needed to stop him.” I continue staring down the path he took. How far could he have gone with a bullet wound like that? Will he go to the hospital?

“Alone?”

“I was the only one on the street. Did you see him? I didn’t get a good look with the mask he was wearing. We need to get to the hospitals, see if he checks in?—”

“Bianca.” Silas grips my face, cradling it in his hands and forcing me to look at him. His eyes are wide and wild, his cheeks red.

“What?” I ask. “We need to get Lance. The others. We need to?—”

“Get you to the hospital,” he interrupts. “You’ve been shot. Do you hear me? You’re losing a lot of blood.”

For the first time, I look down at the blood covering my skirt and pooling on the pavement beneath me. It’s a lot. Enough that it’s already saturated the shirt he wrapped around my arm.

It means the bullet likely caught my brachial artery. Which also means that if I don’t get help, I’m going to go into shock.

Soon.

As if on cue, my vision wavers. Dark spots invade my sightline.

“I think I need to sit down. Just for a minute.”

“No.” Silas catches me as I start to fall. “Call an ambulance!”

I hate hospitals.

Everything about them. The smell. The feeling. The chill that seems to hang in the air. As twisted as it sounds, I prefer field medic tents to big hospitals like this. Probably because that’s what I’m used to.

The hospital in Hope Springs isn’t even that large, but it feels like a hospital and that’s enough for me. Which is why I’m endlessly grateful that I’m already at home after Doc removed the bullet that tore through the artery in my arm and stitched me back together.

Sheriff Vick managed to catch the shooter—he’d driven off the road after passing out due to blood loss. So, go me, I guess.

The pain in my arm is extensive since I refused anything stronger than over-the-counter pain meds once the surgery was done, but I can manage. Unfortunately, it’s not the worst pain I’ve faced. At least I have a sling this time.

Lance assured me that he’d call when they had anything, but I check my phone again just in case. I’m desperate to face down with the shooter myself, but he’d made me come home for the night, promising that I could be in the interrogation room as soon as I got some rest.

But rest is the last thing I need.

There’s a knock on my door, so I cross over and check the peephole. Silas stands just outside, his hands in his pockets.

I haven’t seen him since I passed out.

He didn’t come to the hospital, not that I blame him. He probably hates them more than I do. But I’d hated that he wasn’t there.

I open the door, and his gaze levels on me. “How do you feel?”

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