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Hayden’s gaze lingered on me, then he took a gun out from beneath his jacket.
I opened my mouth to ask where he’d gotten it from, but he put a finger to my lips.
One tiny touch took my breath away so quickly the words died on my lips.
He climbed through to sit in the passenger seat and trained the gun on our driver. He didn’t shoot, but Hayden’s voice was deadly cold when he said, “You don’t talk about her like that.”
Caleb glanced over, then laughed. “Put your gun away, you idiot. You shoot me and the ambulance goes straight into a tree. Look around. You want me to drive us right off the road? We’re surrounded by woods. What’s going to happen to her then?”
Hayden didn’t lower his revolver. “I’m done with this. With you. Any deals we had are over. I’m not doing your dirty work for you anymore. Pull the ambulance over and let us out.”
I held my breath at the word ‘us.’ For half a second, I thought Caleb might actually do it. We’d be left in the middle of nowhere, but I didn’t care. I’d walk all night to get back to town, if it meant getting away from him and keeping my daughter safe.
A roar of motorcycles behind us had Caleb and Hayden both checking their side mirrors.
“Fuck!” Caleb shouted, the debate with Hayden over letting us out instantly forgotten. “They must have realized you weren’t in there.”
“Me?” Hayden asked. “Why would they care about me?”
Caleb glanced over his shoulder. “Because they think you were the one who ordered the hit on their president.”
Hayden stared at him. “That was you! I just gave you the contact.”
Caleb waved his hand around. “Details, details. I might have paid one of your guys to drop the idea in their heads that it was you. Which was fun at the time, but not so much anymore, so now I’m gonna need you to get out.”
“I’m not fucking getting out, Caleb. If they think I murdered their prez, they’ll kill me on sight. You fucking bastard.”
I didn’t see Caleb draw the gun. Maybe he already had it firmly in his grasp and I just hadn’t noticed.
But I noticed when he trained it on Hayden.
Without any of the hesitation Hayden had displayed over taking a life, Caleb pulled the trigger.
I didn’t even have a chance to scream before a patch of crimson spread around the bullet hole in Hayden’s chest. The impact pushed his body against the window, and he slumped, his eyes wide with shock and staring at the place he’d been shot.
“Hayden!” I scrambled to get the gurney straps off me with my one free hand, while clutching my daughter with the other. I got to my feet, unsteady in the moving vehicle but desperately spinning around for something to stop the bleeding. There were large, sterile packages of gauze in a drawer, and I ripped one open with my teeth, taking out the white fabric squares.
In the gap between the driver’s and passenger seats, I crouched to push the gauze against the ragged hole in his skin.
It instantly filled with blood.
It was everywhere. Coating him. Me. The baby. I whirled on Caleb. “He needs a hospital!”
Caleb’s attention alternated between the ambulance he was driving way too fast and the bikers following us. “Unfortunately, the hospital is not along our planned route of travel. So this is the end of the line for Mr. Whitling. If he’d like to get out here, I’m sure the Slayers back there will happily tend to his wounds.” He shrugged. “Or let him bleed out for killing their prez. Could go either way.”
“Caleb!”
I didn’t even know why his callous words shocked me. They shouldn’t have.
The man looked right past me, like I wasn’t even there. “What’s it going to be, lover boy? You getting out here and giving yourself up so those bastards leave me and your girl alone? Or you going to sit there and let her watch you die? Your call.”
Hayden tried to say something, but blood dribbled from his mouth. He coughed and spluttered on it. His hand moved toward the handle.
I grabbed it, panic spearing through my heart. I wasn’t going to watch him die. “No! You’re not opening that door! At this speed, the fall alone will kill you. We’re getting you to a hospital, and you’re going to be just fine. They’ll just stitch you right up and—shit! I need more gauze.” I grabbed his hand and pressed it over the bloody patch that was completely soaked through. “Hold this, okay?”
He tried to talk again but couldn’t get the words out. They were just moans of agony.
His expression ripped my heart in two. He was too young. Probably only a few years older than me.