A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)(25)

Except Drew isn’t.

The bullet got me.

Drew crashes into John, who falls on top of me. John’s hand goes to my throat, then all his weight is off me. He’s dangling in air like a puppet, his head snapping to the right at an unusual angle. A horrible, deep crunching sound vibrates into my back teeth. How does he do that? It’s like a special effect, only this isn’t CGI and when John falls to the ground, Drew is behind him, arms pumped, face berserk and ferocious, eyes on me.

That’s where my memory steps in and says enough.

Wood splinters in the distance and then the room is filled with men in black and heat, an impossible number of guns, and they’re all crowding around us, Silas and Mark Paulson barking orders, Drew screaming my name as the men in black fatigues cover the room with their red lasers.

If I weren’t in pain, so hot, so cold, so wet, so tired, the bouncing red dots would make me laugh.

And then I’m off Jane, on the couch, a blanket on me, someone pressing hard on my shoulder, making me scream. Drew’s above me, his mouth moving but the words aren’t there. Who pressed his mute button? Someone turned off all the sound in the world.

Stretchers appear in my peripheral vision and then the warm blanket is off me, cold air stinging the lava-hot part of my soul. I don’t have a shoulder anymore, just a place where the heat all lives. I open my mouth to scream but I stop, bracing myself.

Then I exhale, so slowly it’s like blowing through a straw.

And I don’t care.

The pain doesn’t matter.

Drew’s staring intently into my eyes but I can’t look back. It hurts. He thinks I’m here but I’m not. I left. I left back in that bedroom with my mouth on John’s, his lips a sick caress of the damned.

I close my eyes.

“We’re losing her!” Drew says.

Are you? You’re losing me?

Good.

I don’t want to be found.





Drew


I let Paulson grab my arms and pull me back only because the med crew is there to put oxygen on Lindsay, to stem the flow of blood from the gunshot wound, to save her.

“You saved her,” Paulson says in a voice meant to shake me out of my reactive mode.

“She’s unconscious!”

“She’s in shock,” he says, shifting to a calm civilian tone. “She’s not going to die, Drew.” He looks pointedly at Stellan’s body, the section from the waistband of his jeans to mid-thigh a blanket of blood, the handle of the knife poking out from his crotch like an obscene joke. He looks like an extra from Bad Santa. “Unlike some people in this room, she won’t die.”

I follow his gaze and watch Stellan’s chest.

No movement.

He’s definitely dead.

Jesus. Lindsay did that. I watched her stab him. I helped by kicking the knife home. There is a reservoir of pure strength inside her. I’ve always known it, but to watch it in action is a form of strange beauty.

They’re all dead. All three of our tormentors. A group of SWAT officers, Mark, and Silas start talking to me in serial, each question too loud, too swift, too perfectly pointed for me to focus.

The medical personnel wrap Lindsay in thick blankets and prepare to move her to a backboard. Once she’s secured, they put her on a stretcher, one person applying pressure to the gunshot wound, the others pulling her away.

I gravitate toward her.

I meet a wall of men.

I go around them.

Mark’s hands are on my shoulders, rock solid, unyielding. His hold communicates a distinct message.

You’re not going anywhere, Drew.

A high-pitched whine fills my ears, an industrial sound like a pneumatic wheeze, the sound of machinery and motors functioning in the distance. It’s louder and louder, and soon I don’t understand Mark’s words.

Instead of focusing on him, I watch the television, which has cut away to an aerial view of my apartment. Tiffany is next to the television, surrounded by paramedics, and she’s breathing into a paper bag. The look she gives the female medic who hands her an oxygen mask should make my heart hurt.

Can’t hurt something that’s locked away in a box, though.

“You did it,” I hear. I turn sharply, following that voice.

It’s Silas.

“You did it, Drew. You said you’d get them, and you did.”

“We did.” I look toward the doorway where the paramedics are maneuvering the stretcher with Lindsay on it. I step forward, but Silas gently blocks me.

“You can’t go with her.”

“Why not?”

“She has a GSW, Drew. They’ll get her to the nearest hospital then med-flight her to LAC.”

“That bad?” Shock ripples through me. I’m doubly determined to follow.

“You’ve broken so many laws. We have to take you into custody.”

“That has to wait.” I push past him. He lets me, but Mark’s right by Tiffany’s front door. He’s a wall, a barrier, a border between me and Lindsay.

“You have your own wounds, Drew.”

I brush him off. “I’m fine.”

“Looks like you broke something in your left hand, and you’re limping. You’re not fine.”

“I’m fine. I’m not letting her leave without me. I’ll ride in the ambulance with her.”