Page 4 of Broken
“Please get here immediately and don’t tell the Cobras anything. I know I’ve gotten you involved in so many things and... But I just... I...” Tears filled my eyes.
“I’ll beright over. You said your friend was shot?”
“Yeah. I guess.” It was dark and I hadn’t been able to see too much.
“Keep pressure on the wound. I’ll bring Eric with me.”
“Okay. Thanks.” I lowered the phone and rushed back to Theo. After I grabbed a towel from my closet, I pressed it against his wound. “Hey, Theo, wake up. Please. Come on.” There was no response, and for a second, I wasafraid that he was already gone. But as I pressed my fingers over his pulse, I could still feel it flutter. “Damn it, Theo, just open your eyes. Please.”
How the hell had he gotten in here? He must have used the fire escape stairway, but the Cobras were supposed to be guarding and watching it too, so what the hell had happened to them? If they were dead, then why hadn’t the others come tocheck on me? Surely, Theo wouldn’t have been able to take them all out without raising any alarms.
I had to assume the Cobras didn’t know he’d gotten in here. Maybe he’d found a way to distract them so he could sneak to the stairway, or he’d incapacitated one or two of them. There was no time for me to go check, and I definitely didn’t want the Cobras to get in here and kill Theo or preventAlice from doing her job. She’d tell me if the Cobras were still out there once she got here.
For a moment, I considered the option that Theo wasn’t alone, but then his friends or people who worked for him would’ve been here looking for him. Besides, he’d always preferred to do everything on his own. And what he’d said... that he’d come here to see me... I didn’t dare to believe it, becausethat would mean he still cared about me.
“Theo, come on.” I patted his cheek gently, but his eyes didn’t open. What if Alice got here too late?
I had no idea how much time had passed when my phone rang. “Yeah?” I said after managing to press the answer button with my bloody finger.
“Alice and Eric are here.” I recognized the voice of one of my guards. “They say you invited them.Is that true?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I forgot to tell you. Let them in.” So my guards were still out there and weren’t even aware of what was going on. Okay, that wasn’t too much of a surprise, considering how skillful Theo was at getting into places unseen. I placed the phone down on the floor and rushed to unlock the door, hoping Theo would be fine.
I was never more relieved to see Alice’sdark brown eyes as I opened the door and let her and Eric inside while I hid my bloody hands from view of the guards outside. When I closed the door, I turned toward Alice.
“Where’s your friend?” she asked, tying her dark brown hair in a bun, as Eric opened a duffel bag full of medical supplies.
“My room.”
“If I understood correctly, your friend can’t go to a hospital and your guardscan’t know about him.” She gave me a quick look as we strode toward my room.
“Yeah, I... He’s kind of...” I didn’t know what to say.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.” She was at Theo’s side in a second, and I had to step back so Eric could pass too.
“You should wait outside,” Eric said, his dark eyes trained on me. “We’ll take care of your friend.”
“But I can help you with...”
“We’ll call for you if we need anything.” He offered me a small smile and closed the door. Shit. I paced up and down the hallway, then glanced down at Theo’s blood on my fingers. This was so not happening. Except it was.
I hurried to the bathroom to wash my hands, and Eric came a few moments later, but instead of telling me anything, he only poured some water into a container he hadwith him. I supposed asking him if Theo was going to be fine would be a waste of his time because he would’ve told me something if there was any news, so I let him walk out of there. Theo was strong. He’d pull through. He had to.
I DIDN’T KNOW HOW LONG I’d been sitting in the living room and staring at the wall when Alice sat down on the sofa next to me. My eyes lifted to hers, and I was holding my breath for her next words.
“It wasn’t easy, and I don’t have all the equipment here, but, if there aren’t any complications, he should be fine.”
“Oh God. Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around her.
“He’slucky nothing important was hit. The wound looked worse than it really was, and the bullet was laced with poison.”
“Poison?” I blinked at her.
“Yes. I’m not sure what it is.”
“But the antidote...” Was there some kind of a universal antidote that had worked?
“The antidote was actually in his pocket. Eric discovered it by accident. We didn’t have any other choice but to try itout, so we did, and it worked.”