Page 109 of Two Chambered Heart

Just as the last manacle dropped, another man burst through the doorway and hurled himself at her.

She fell to the ground, the force of the impact pushing her into the metal chair, which toppled over. Horrified, she watched as Jason was knocked down, landing in a pool of his own blood and vomit.

She had lost stamina, and the man had successfully pulled out one of her knives. He jammed the steel into her unprotected shoulder. Through the searing pain, she watched Jason’s fingertips gripping for purchase on the cold floor, pulling himself to her, clawing for her with broken hands.

The man on top of her dug his knee into her gut, using it as leverage to rip the knife from her flesh. She was screaming.

Then she heard a gun go off.

Her mind was a black hole of pain and confusion. She waited for the bullet to execute her. When nothing came, her head lolled to the side again. Jason held her lost pistol in his mangled hand. She saw his hand twitch on the trigger again, and another shot struck the man’s head, blowing his brains out. Chunks of wet tissue and bone fragment landed on her and bile crawled up her throat, angry burning acid.

Jason was at her side.

“You came for me.” He could barely get the words out, a hoarse whisper along sandpaper.

She swallowed, holding back everything she wanted to say to him, mostly pathetic apologies for being the catalyst to this hellish endeavour. There was no time for that now. “Kayden’s downstairs, holding down our exit. We need to get you to the elevator.”

He touched his forehead to hers on the ground. “I never got to tell you. I thought I was going to die, and then I thought you were going to die, and I never got to say it. But here you are—a death’s wish. Corey, I lo—”

“Stop!” she sobbed, covering his bloody mouth, cutting his words off. “Don’t you dare fucking say it. You’re not going to say it when you think this is goodbye. This isn’t fucking goodbye, do you hear me? Tell me when we’re out of here.” The sobs were wracking her body now, the carnage catching up to her as her adrenaline gave way to blinding agony.

Somehow, with an oozing shoulder and crushed organs, she managed to pull herself off the ground. Jason’s eyes had closed in the time it had taken her, but she could see the slow rise and fall of his ruined chest, a latticework of flayed skin.

“Archie, how do I get him out?” She’d almost forgotten he was with them.

“There’s three syringes on the metal tray by the chair. Read them out to me.”

She grasped for the syringes, trying to ignore all the other tools that were there, ones so similar to what Jason had shown her just weeks ago. She squinted at the tiny print, trying to stop the letters from swimming away from her. Finally, she sounded out. “Epinephrine.”

“It’s adrenaline. Corey, you’re going to have to hit him with that. It’s the only way he’ll be able to walk out of here, and you can’t carry him.”

“He’s in too much pain. This could send him into cardiac arrest.”

“Give him one and count his pulse.”

With shaking hands, she stabbed Jason in the thigh with the syringe, pushing the adrenaline into him. She knew they must have used this to wake him up after he’d pass out from the pain of their torture and now, she was doing the exact same thing.

A silent sob escaped her.

Jason’s eyes bulged open as he gasped a breath in, his pupils blown wide.

Corey counted his pulse. “I think it’s hitting 120 beats per minute”

“One more, Corey,” Archie said into her ear.

She hit him with another one, and his pulse raced under her fingers. She wedged her good shoulder under his armpit and pulled him up to sitting as his eyes bugged out.

“Jase, you have to get up.” Her voice was so strangled.

“I can’t.”

“Corey, there’s a morphine syringe in the back of your vest.Put it in his bicep.”

She did as she was told, cursing Archie for not telling her before.

“Can you handle morphine, Corey? There’s a second one in there.”

She didn’t know. Had never used it, but reached for the second one anyway, fumbling with the pocket behind her. She pressed the needle into her own bicep and felt the slow warming of the drug as it melted into her system.

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