Page 53 of Born to Bleed

She had to get in there. Had to get to Hayden…

“We need to regroup,” she snapped at Mason as he paced past her. “Now.”

His jaw ticked as he paused and met her gaze. “Yeah, no shit.”

“No. We need to regroup now, and make our move.”

He shook his head. “You’ve gotta be joking.”

She took a step forward. “I am dead serious. We have a plan. We have enough of our weapons, enough of our fighters—”

“Enough?” he growled. “I lost people I’ve known since childhood. I held Liam when he was a baby, and I had to watch him bleed out in front of me. Don’t fucking tell me we have enough. We have lost enough.”

Fury pumped in her veins. “Ah yes, he’d really want you to roll over and give up. Heaven forbid you try to give his death meaning.”

The vein in Mason’s forehead began to bulge, his face reddening, shoulders bracing. She swore he was about to attack her, but screw it. She was ready for it. Anna braced herself.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sawyer rasped, pushing his form between herself and Mason. “We’re all feeling a lot of things right now. Let’s cool off before we talk shop.”

Mason’s eyes never left her own. If he wanted her to be intimidated, she wasn’t. She held his gaze, her own jaw just as tense as his. He gave in first, turning and stomping away.

Once he was gone, her attention moved to Sawyer, whose eyes were light, his pupils just a bit too large. “You good?” he asked.

“No,” she spat, turning and marching off. She needed some distance between herself and the others. Needed time to think.

If they wouldn’t help her? She’d go after Hayden alone. She’d always planned to do this alone anyway, so what was the difference?

“You need to give them time.”

“I don’t have time!” She spun back to Sawyer, his gait stopping just before he crashed into her. “Hayden doesn’t have time.”

“My brother will be fine, I promise you that.”

“How do you know?” There was no way. It didn’t matter how smart he was, how skilled of a fighter… he was outnumbered, outgunned. For all they knew, Hayden was already dead. Or a prisoner. Being tortured…

“Hey,” Sawyer snapped, “eyes on me. Take a deep breath.” She… obeyed. Without even knowing what she was doing. “Hayden is going to be fine, because he has to be. There is no other outcome for us. Not until we’re faced with another one.”

That shouldn’t have been comforting, but somehow, it was. The moment scary possibilities entered her mind, she grew frantic, unstable, desperate to find him. But imagining he was okay… that gave her room to think. To plan. To get him back.

“There you go,” Sawyer said, as if he could read her mind. “Now, I need you to lay off Mason and the others. They need time.”

“We don’t have ti—”

“I know. I hear you.” He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place. “Fighting comes easy to us. It makes sense to us. We were born in this world after all.”

She rolled her eyes.

“They were born on farms. Their biggest battle has been wrestling with siblings in the yard, or hunting for deer to put food on the table.” He squeezed her shoulders. “They came up here to join the fight. That doesn’t mean they fully understood what they were signing up for.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat, hating that he was right. Hating that Sawyer of all people was speaking reason to her. “I just want to get Hayden back.”

Sawyer grinned. “I’ve grown annoyingly accustomed to rescuing my brothers from certain death.” He dropped his hands to his sides, rolled his shoulders back. “It always works out just fine.”

She huffed out a breath at that. “Yeah, except I watched you all but lose your shit when Derek was missing.”

Sawyer’s jaw ticked, barely visible, but just enough for her to notice. “It’s easy to lose my shit around the people I trust. People I know will lead me back from whatever dark places I go to. But here? These people need a leader. I know it might shock you, but I can do both.”

That… sounded familiar. It made her miss Hayden even more. Without even realizing it, he’d helped her open up, to find who she was buried beneath the rage and the fire. Maybe not who she was, but who she wanted to be. Who she could be, if the two of them had more time…

---