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The gunshot was so loud it left my ears ringing. The second was worse, the noise shattering through my skull until I was confused as to where I was.
But when it cleared, I wished for it to come back.
Both paramedics lay dead on the floor in front of us. A single bullet to both their skulls, their blood and bone and brains spattered across the women surrounding me.
Caleb was already tugging at their clothes, stripping them of their uniforms.
Men appeared in the doorway, but Caleb barked for them to piss off, and surprisingly, they listened. Hayden just stared down at the two dead men; his boots coated in their rapidly pooling blood.
“Get a uniform on,” Caleb snapped.
Hayden blinked up at him. “What?”
“Get a uniform on. We’re surrounded. You said it yourself. I just bought us a way out. You. Me. And the little slut carrying my child. Get the uniform on.”
Hayden shook his head. “No.” His arms went limp at his side. “Fuck, Caleb. No. This isn’t what I signed up for. None of it is. This isn’t what you promised.”
Caleb stopped and stared at him. “Liam Banks. Lawyer at Simonson Lawyers and Partners. Partner to Mae Donovan, Rowe Pritchard, and Heath Michaelson. Parents of a five-year-old named Ripley and a newborn baby named Jay. Your mother is Sarah, who drives a blue station wagon, license plate PPT-1680 and lives on Delilah Road in Saint View.”
Hayden stared up at Caleb in horror. “How do you know my family? Liam and I don’t even go by the same last name.”
Caleb went back to tugging on a dead man’s clothes. “Because I do my homework, Chaos. I know everyone’s weak spots so when they turn into whiny, useless crybabies like you’re being right now, I know how best to motivate them. So, you can either get on the uniform and protect me like I fucking paid you to, and your family gets to live on happily, or you can stay here and die in a mass shooting when the Slayers finally take this place and burn it to the ground. Your choice.”
Hayden’s eyes went hard. “You piece of fucking shi—”
Caleb waggled his finger in Hayden’s face. “Now, now. Remember who’s calling the shots here. Get your clothes on and let’s go.”
I grabbed Hayden’s hand. “Don’t let him take me,” I begged. “He’ll kill me. Or take my baby. Or sell us both. Please don’t let him. I’ll take my chances with the guys outside. They couldn’t be worse than him.”
Indecision flickered on Hayden’s face. So long that Caleb grabbed the back of his head and pushed it down so Hayden was forced to stare at the dead bodies in front of him. “This is what your brother will look like. His woman. Your nephews. Maybe I’ll let you explain to your mother how their deaths are all your fault before I kill her too,” he sneered in Hayden’s face, his eyes as black as the night outside. “Or would you prefer to watch me fuck her before I do that?”
Whatever light was left in Hayden’s eyes shut down. He took my arm. “Get on the gurney.”
I couldn’t even blame him. I would have done the same.
The other girls wailed when I stood and waited for Caleb and Hayden to get dressed into the dead men’s clothes and lift the gurney into position. Winnie clutched at my fingers while I got myself on and lay down with my daughter on my chest.
I couldn’t bring myself to say goodbye to them as I was wheeled out of the room. All I could do was squeeze my eyes tight and hope the men outside were good to them. That they’d spare them. Maybe even set them free.
I didn’t hold the same hopes for myself.
Caleb was never going to let me go.
25
VAUGHN
Rebel threw a pen across the room so hard it left a mark when it hit the wall and slid down to land on the floor. “I can’t do this anymore, Vaughn! I’m losing my shit just sitting here.”
I leaned backward on the kitchen chair, balancing it on two legs so I could retrieve the pen that had nearly taken my eye out. I placed it back on her side of the table gingerly. “If I give you this back, can you please promise not to use it as a javelin again?”
She blinked at me like she had no idea how her pen had even ended up where it had. She snatched it back and agitatedly scribbled on the mockup of the Order of Service we’d had designed for the funeral.
I winced and pulled the paper booklet out from underneath all the pen stabbing, replacing it with a notepad for her to destroy instead. “No news is good news, right? Fang will let us know as soon as there’s anything to report.”
She rolled her head from side to side, and her neck cracked. It didn’t seem to do anything to reduce her stress though. “What’s taking them so long? Can’t they just storm the place, guns blazing?”
“I’m guessing maybe they would have if the Sinners weren’t hiding behind a group of innocent women.”