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“Not me,” she says, her voice breaking as she scrambles to her feet. “You need to help me. I can’t get the bleeding to stop on my own and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never had to patch someone up before.”

The world around me is spinning as I stand and reach for her. “You need to tell me that nothing is wrong with you, Gia. Where is Bianca?”

Gia sniffles and tries to snatch her arm away from me. “You need to let go. She’s going to die if we don’t do something.”

A sharp pain rushes through my chest. It’s impossible to get a breath in as I look at her. “Bianca?”

“No.” Gia takes a step back, her chest rising and falling like she’s just finished a marathon. “It’s Skyla.”

Though the world stops falling out from beneath me, it doesn’t feel like the words Gia says are real, even as I follow her over to the bottom of the front steps.

Skyla is stretched out, but her eyes are shut, and her breathing is shallow.

I crouch down beside her, touching her clammy skin. “Gia, go inside and get my phone. Now!”

Gia stands and runs into the house, taking the wooden stairs two at a time and nearly tripping over a patch of slush.

“Skyla, you’re going to have to open your eyes for me.” I stop and listen to her breathing. Though it’s shallow, she isn’t wheezing, and I don’t hear any signs of gurgling.

As long as she hasn’t punctured a lung, she should be okay.

I glance down, trying to figure out where the blood is coming from as all the snow around her melts with the warmth.

There’s a bullet wound on the right side of her ribs, but it’s closer to her arm than her heart.

Please let the shot have missed her lungs.

Gia launches herself down the stairs and over to me, handing me the phone. I press my hand against the bullet wound while dialing Ellie’s number.

“You need to go back inside and get me some towels,” I say to Gia, tone stern. “We have to get the bleeding to stop and a hand or a shirt isn’t going to cut it. Haul out all the towels you can find.”

The color drains from Gia’s face as she runs back into the house.

The call connects, Ellie’s worried hitch of her breath coming from the other end. “What’s going on, Royce?”

“Skyla’s been shot in the ribs. I don’t think her lung was punctured, but she’s bleeding a lot, and I have no clue how to get it to stop.”

“Are you applying pressure?” Ellie asks, her voice tight but controlled as she switches into nurse mode. “You have to keep the pressure hard on her, even if you think it’s going to hurt her. Check to make sure there’s an exit wound too. If there isn’t, you need to get her to the nearest hospital.”

I put the phone on speaker, leaving it on Skyla’s stomach while gently rolling her to the side to check her back. “There’s an exit wound.”

“You’re going to need to apply pressure there too. You’re going to go through a lot of towels, and we aren’t going to know what the damage inside her looks like until we can get her to a doctor. Are you going to be able to do a blood transfusion if you have to?”

“Yeah. Gia went to grab what she can find for towels. I can give blood if I have to, but I don’t know if I have everything we need to do it.” I feel sick as I press my fingers into Skyla’s wound, sealing the hole the best that I can and pushing down. “She’s going to need stitches.”

“I’m getting in the car now. We should be there by the morning at the latest, but you’re going to need to do everything you can to keep her alive until then.”

I make a strangled noise in the back of my throat as Gia reappears with towels. “I think one of her ribs might be fractured, but there’s no bullet stuck in her.”

Gia nods and gets to work shoving towels beneath Skyla’s body before focusing on replacing my fingers with the thick cloth pressed tight to her abdomen.

Ellie takes a wavering breath. “If you need to do the transfusion, call me back, okay? You can handle this, Royce. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The call ends as I turn to Gia.

She looks at me with wide eyes, her bottom lip quivering. “How much damage do you think was done to her?”

“There’s no way to know until Ellie gets here and takes a look at everything, but she’s on her way and we should know soon.”