Page 87 of Where the Wicked Reign

The target yanked it out with a self-satisfied smirk and it was a bitch of a thing to swallow down a scream.

And then a fist slammed into his face so brutally that it snapped his head to the side, and he was knocked out cold.

As he dropped, Emilio was there in front of me, kicking the guy out of the way, then eyeing my side. “I saw what you did,” he told me. He reached out to me and I instinctively jerked back. “No. It’s okay. Come here.”

Instead, I stumbled as a wave of dizziness assaulted me.

I tried to blink it away, but he was suddenly there stabilizing me and also pressing his hand to the site of the wound, compressing it.

“I’m fine,” I grunted. “It’s not my first time.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier. And every wound is different.”

“Let go. We’re in the middle of battle,” I said, gesturing at the chaos all around us.

But as I took it in, I saw that the boys had already adjusted to the new situation.

Julian was covering Emilio, beating back targets trying to come at us.

And Nico was in a complete fury, his fiery eyes darting over to me every few seconds, while he somehow still battled the enemy.

I watched him catch one of them, yank them down by their shoulder, then shove his gun into their mouth and pull the trigger, making one hell of a macabre display.

He and Julian then worked in tandem to down the remaining few.

When the last one fell, a look was exchanged between Emilio and Nico and then Nico was jumping on the guy who’d stabbed me, and literally tearing into him with a knife, opening him up until he was a writhing mass of damage, blood, guts, tissue, and hell knew what else.

A bullet ripped into his skull, jarring Nico, and we all looked to see Julian standing there with his gun still in firing position.

“It’s over,” he told Nico, gesturing around at every single enemy target now lining the floor, dead to the world. “We need to evacuate the hostages. My contact just texted. He’s waiting with the trucks.”

Nico looked at me, shaking his head, then telling Emilio, “You go with Julian. That was the plan.”

“Plan’s just changed,” Julian pointed out.

“I’m compressing her wound,” Emilio added.

Nico started over to us. “I’ll take over.”

“I’m the medic. Part and parcel of being your guard. You know it has to be me.”

“Milo—”

“She’ll be fine. I’ll see to it.”

In the next second, Nico was ripping off his vest, then doing the same with his black tee. He balled it up, then handed it to Emilio. “Use this.”

Emilio nodded and took it, then I felt him removing his hand and using the fabric instead to compress my wound, making me hiss.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” I heard myself telling Nico, telling them all.

But my voice sounded so far away, even to myself, and then I was wavering.

The last thing I was aware of was Emilio laying me down on the couch.

And then everything slipped away.

16

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