Page 76 of Stream & Scream
He gets one dart of fear in his remaining eye. That’s all.
I pull the trigger.
The shot cracks through the cabin like thunder, rattling my skull until the world goes flat. His head bursts open, blood spraying hot across my face. The pantry door takes the rest—brains, bone, blood smeared wide. His body jerks once, twice, then goes slack.
Done.
The pistol clatters from my fingers. Doesn’t matter. I’m already moving. Because she’s still down.
“Liv.” The word tears something raw on the way out.
I crawl through glass, flour and blood, everything mixed into a paste that makes the floor slick. My knee rips through a jag of board and the pain flares stupid-bright up my thigh. I ignore it. Iget to her on hands and elbows, slow enough not to jolt her, fast enough to know I didn’t think about it.
She’s collapsed on her side, breath hitching, eyes glassed with tears she hasn’t bothered to wipe away. The bruises around her throat have darkened in minutes, red blooming toward purple. The bullet crease along her thigh keeps weeping, a steady thread that won’t quit. Her hand tries to rise and doesn’t. Then does, just enough to hook my vest and hold on like a drowning person.
“Hey,” I say, and it’s gravel and smoke and something I don’t recognize in my own voice. “Stay with me, clickbait. Right here. I’ve got you.”
Her lashes flutter. Her lips stutter on a word. My name in a broken syllable. “Ja?—”
“Yeah.” I touch her face with the side of my hand, knuckles not palm—my palm’s a mess of blood and glass. “Yeah, I’m here. Look at me.”
She does, for a heartbeat. Enough.
“Good,” I murmur, gentler than I’ve been in a decade.
Then I’m a triage station moving at speed. My hands go straight for my vest—front pouch, ripped open with my teeth when the buckle sticks. Gauze. Tourniquet. Tape. Alcohol wipes. The basics. I yank them free with fingers that don’t want to close right, blood slicking everything I touch.
I rip her jeans wider with my knife—careful of skin—and expose the groove of the graze. It’s not arterial. Thank fuck. I slide the band high and cinch until she gasps through clenched teeth. “I know, I know,” I tell her. “It’s gonna suck. Breathe with it.”
I pack the wound, tape it down, slap a field dressing over the worst of my side. The stab there burns with every move, hot and wet under the plate. My throat throbs too—knife kiss across thesurface, shallow enough not to bleed me out but deep enough to make every swallow sting like fire. I ignore it. Later problem.
The floor’s slick with blood, too much of it mine and hers. Wind screams through the blown window; the lantern jerks hard on the nail, flame guttering. The cabin reeks—wet wood, gunpowder, penny-copper blood, and the sour stink of ranger linens that should’ve been torched years ago.
The world’s still ringing. Under the ring, a new hum edges in. Not one drone. A chorus. Far. Closer. Distant blades, too—the heavy chop that means rotor wash and spotlights if I give them the chance.
They sent two. They’ll send more.
Loose ends require fire.
I hook my arm under Liv’s shoulders, pull her up against me slowly, careful of her bruises. My side screams when I bend, blood leaking fresh and hot down my hip, but I don’t let it stop me. She makes a small sound that I swallow against my chest.
“We’ve gotta move,” I growl, raw-throated, because the room’s full of death and I won’t let her breathe this air another second. “Now.”
Her fingers tighten in my vest. Not a nod. Not words. Enough.
I get my arm under her knees, lifting. My wounds tear open hotter, shoulder muscles screaming, ribs aching from the fight. Doesn’t matter. Adrenaline makes jokes out of limits. I stand with her, weight locking into my legs like it belongs there. Her head drops into the notch of my shoulder. Her breath skips across my collarbone, fragile and hot.
“Hold on,” I say.
I kick the back door and it gives, hanging sideways on ruined hinges. The night air smacks me in the face—damp, heavy, thick with the stink of wet leaves and earth. The forest is black ribs crowding in, the kind that swallows light whole. Crickets humlow. Somewhere far off, a rotor chop eats at the silence, faint but getting closer.
I set her down once we’re outside the cabin, and we move.
Her arm is hooked over my shoulder, grip trembling. Blood seeps warm down my side where the bastard stuck me, every stride pulling it wider. My throat stings raw, cut shallow but deep enough to burn. She leans into me, staggering, and I keep her upright. One foot in front of the other.
“This way,” I mutter, voice low, graveled. “Not far.”
She groans, the sound paper-thin. “Jax…”
