Page 142 of Beware of Dog

Cass moaned, and gasped, and murmured the whole way. “Shep…Frank…what?”

“Shh, hold on, hold on.”

“It hurts.”

“I know, baby, I know. I’m gonna fix it.”

There were partygoers on the porch when he reached it, laughing, cups in hand, oblivious to him until he came charging up the stairs. Someone’s girlfriend turned and screamed when she saw Cass.

“Move,” Shep ordered. He searched for a familiar face, and, like a lifeline in the dark, found Tommy. “She’s been shot,” he said, “get your family. Clear out the dining room.”

“Holy shit,” Tommy muttered, but took off at a run.

“Jesus, man, Jesus,” Elrod said, hands waving around, beer slopping out of his cup.

“Open the door.”

“Yeah, okay.”

There was a moment, as he entered the house and rushed down the hall, that reality blurred. Bright lights. A tumble of voices. A buzz of activity.

And then he was standing beside the dining room table, beneath the bright glow of the rustic chandelier, and Raven was shoving serving platters and spreads off into the floor, china and glass shattering with sharp pops.

“Here, here, here,” she said, bare arms smeared with French onion dip, and he knew in that moment that she was the field nurse/second in command he needed in this instance.

Raven turned back, and he could see the panic in her expression, like anyone in war, but the determined set of her jaw, too. “What happened?”

The half of him that was a new husband, that loved a woman, that had just gotten married and was already thinking about honeymoon spots, wanted to scream.

So he called on the military man inside him, curt and brutal. “We took fire on the hill, on the way to the cabin. We—we were—I—”

Cass moved in his arms, and he tightened them on reflex.

“Put her down,” Raven said, and Shep realized he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

He laid Cass as carefully as he could on the now-empty table, apologizing, but her eyes were closed, and she didn’t respond.

Raven swooped in with a folded-up square of fabric—one of the linen tablecloths from outside, he noted, in the part of his brain capable of cataloguing needless details right now—and gently lifted Cass’s head to place it beneath.

Her brothers piled into the room, like a wave crashing, voices overlapping.

“What happened?”

“I heard shots.”

“Is Cass—shit.”

“Is she breathing?” The last from Fox, who crowded in beside Shep and reached to press two fingers to Cass’s throat, checking for a pulse.

“Yeah,” Shep choked out, but he wasn’t sure ifhewas.

He needed to—

He had to—

His kit—

He saw that he was still applying pressure to the overshirt he’d wadded against her wound and thoughtwhat the fuck, asshole, do something!

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