Page 32 of Stream & Scream

The pistol clatters from my fingers. Doesn’t matter. I’m already moving. Because she’s still down.

“Liv.” The word tears something raw on the way out.

I crawl through glass, flour and blood, everything mixed into a paste that makes the floor slick.

My knee rips through a jag of board and the pain flares stupid-bright up my thigh.

I ignore it. I get to her on hands and elbows, slow enough not to jolt her, fast enough to know I didn’t think about it.

She’s collapsed on her side, breath hitching, eyes glassed with tears she hasn’t bothered to wipe away.

The bruises around her throat have darkened in minutes, red blooming toward purple.

The bullet crease along her thigh keeps weeping, a steady thread that won’t quit.

Her hand tries to rise and doesn’t. Then does, just enough to hook my vest and hold on like a drowning person.

“Hey,” I say, and it’s gravel and smoke and something I don’t recognize in my own voice. “Stay with me, clickbait. Right here. I’ve got you.”

Her lashes flutter. Her lips stutter on a word. My name in a broken syllable. “Ja?—”

“Yeah.” I touch her face with the side of my hand, knuckles not palm—my palm’s a mess of blood and glass. “Yeah, I’m here. Look at me.”

She does, for a heartbeat. Enough.

“Good,” I murmur, gentler than I’ve been in a decade.

Then I’m a triage station moving at speed. My hands go straight for my vest—front pouch, ripped open with my teeth when the buckle sticks. Gauze. Tourniquet. Tape. Alcohol wipes. The basics. I yank them free with fingers that don’t want to close right, blood slicking everything I touch.

I rip her jeans wider with my knife—careful of skin—and expose the groove of the graze. It’s not arterial. Thank fuck. I slide the band high and cinch until she gasps through clenched teeth. “I know, I know,” I tell her. “It’s gonna suck. Breathe with it.”

I pack the wound, tape it down, slap a field dressing over the worst of my side.

The stab there burns with every move, hot and wet under the plate.

My throat throbs too—knife kiss across the surface, shallow enough not to bleed me out but deep enough to make every swallow sting like fire. I ignore it. Later problem.

The floor’s slick with blood, too much of it mine and hers. Wind screams through the blown window; the lantern jerks hard on the nail, flame guttering. The cabin reeks—wet wood, gunpowder, penny-copper blood, and the sour stink of ranger linens that should’ve been torched years ago.

The world’s still ringing. Under the ring, a new hum edges in. Not one drone. A chorus. Far. Closer. Distant blades, too—the heavy chop that means rotor wash and spotlights if I give them the chance.

They sent two. They’ll send more.

Loose ends require fire.

I hook my arm under Liv’s shoulders, pull her up against me slowly, careful of her bruises. My side screams when I bend, blood leaking fresh and hot down my hip, but I don’t let it stop me. She makes a small sound that I swallow against my chest.

“We’ve gotta move,” I growl, raw-throated, because the room’s full of death and I won’t let her breathe this air another second. “Now.”

Her fingers tighten in my vest. Not a nod. Not words. Enough.

I get my arm under her knees, lifting. My wounds tear open hotter, shoulder muscles screaming, ribs aching from the fight.

Doesn’t matter. Adrenaline makes jokes out of limits.

I stand with her, weight locking into my legs like it belongs there.

Her head drops into the notch of my shoulder.

Her breath skips across my collarbone, fragile and hot.

“Hold on,” I say.

I kick the back door and it gives, hanging sideways on ruined hinges.

The night air smacks me in the face—damp, heavy, thick with the stink of wet leaves and earth.

The forest is black ribs crowding in, the kind that swallows light whole.

Crickets hum low. Somewhere far off, a rotor chop eats at the silence, faint but getting closer.

I set her down once we’re outside the cabin, and we move.

Her arm is hooked over my shoulder, grip trembling. Blood seeps warm down my side where the bastard stuck me, every stride pulling it wider. My throat stings raw, cut shallow but deep enough to burn. She leans into me, staggering, and I keep her upright. One foot in front of the other.

“This way,” I mutter, voice low, graveled. “Not far.”

She groans, the sound paper-thin. “Jax…”

“I got you. Just breathe. Don’t think about anything else.”

The trail is one I marked days ago, scars in bark, rocks stacked just right, a dip where an old fire cut through.

I don’t need to see it. I feel it in my bones.

The ground’s soft from old rain, mud sucking at my boots.

Thorns from a bush claw across my vest, snagging fabric.

One cracks across my cheek, reopening the cut from his headbutt. Doesn’t fucking matter.

She stumbles again, harder this time. Knees buckle. I catch her before she hits the dirt.

“Fuck,” I grit. Her head lolls, lashes barely moving. She’s slipping.

“No. No, baby, not now.” My voice is a snarl, sharp with panic. I tap her cheek once. Her eyes flutter but don’t hold. Her fingers twitch against my vest, then go slack.

That’s it. Enough.

I scoop her up in both arms, cradled tight to my chest. My side screams, ribs grinding under the weight, blood slicking my hip, and my ankle throbs and threatens to give out. But I ignore all of it. Because she’s mine, and I’ll fucking die in this forest if it means getting her out alive.

Her breath is weak against my throat, shallow but there. That’s enough to keep my legs moving.

The forest crowds close. Dark trunks blur past, roots knot underfoot. I duck under a low branch, turn sideways to clear a narrow choke between two trees. My back smashes bark, pain lances my shoulder. I ignore it. I move faster.

Every breath is loud, ragged, rattling up my chest like chains dragging. My vision tunnels on the path ahead. Past the creek bed. Up the ridge. Down again. At the end of it waits the truck. Parked off-road, hidden under a deadfall canopy. Fueled. Armed. Ours.

Behind us, the woods carry distant echoes, dogs barking, men shouting, the chop of blades cutting closer. Doesn’t matter. They won’t reach her.

I tighten my arms around her, hold her face into my chest so she doesn’t see the blood smeared down my vest. “You’re okay,” I whisper against her hair, words rough and raw. “I’ll get you there. I swear it.”

Her head tips against my collarbone, limp. I don’t slow.

Twigs snap. Mud slides. My body bleeds. I don’t stop.

Because every step brings us closer to the truck. Closer to getting her the fuck out of these woods.

And I’ll carry her all the way there if I have to.