Rogue (Dead Man's Ink, #2)(35)

“Begin,” Maria Rosa commands.

“I told you, I don’t have any instruments.”

She crouches down beside me, craning her face into mine, baring her teeth so that she’s showing gum. “Use. Your. Fingers.”

“I am not sticking my fingers inside his body. No way!”

Pain comes, then—a sharp, piercing pain at the back of my head. My vision dances, pinpricks of light bursting everywhere, but I don’t lose consciousness. I do fall forward, though—my hands land right on Rico’s torso. The man’s eyes flicker open, and he gasps soundlessly for oxygen once, twice, and then his eyes roll back in his head. He starts to convulse, pink foam pouring out of his mouth.

“Ahhhh, Mother, the bitch killed him,” Raphael laughs. “She’s trouble. I told you, no?”

Maria Rosa lets out an anguished squeal. I look up, and see that she’s hitting herself in the side of the head with her gun, pulling on her own hair. Tears tremble on the ends of her eyelashes, ready to fall any second. “He’s not dead. You check him. Check his pulse,” she growls.

I do check his pulse. It’s thready and weak, but I can feel the irregular twitch of his heart beneath the pads of my fingers. Thank f*ck for that. “He’s not dead,” I say. I hate how my voice shakes. I hate that I’m afraid right now, but it can’t be helped. I keep finding myself in these situations. If I don’t get shot in the back of the head in a couple of minutes and my brains aren’t splattered all over Rico and the dirt and everywhere else in between, maybe I’ll be less frightened the next time this happens. Maybe.

Maria Rosa grinds her teeth together, repositioning her gun in her hands again. “Okay. Now you get that bullet out of him, bitch, or I’m going put three in you. Do you hear me?” she screams.

I look from her to Cade and back again. Cade has his gun in his hands pointing it at Maria Rosa, but he looks torn. “I could shoot her if you want, Soph. I can’t guarantee she won’t shoot you first, though. It’s your call. What do you want me to do?”

“God, don’t shoot her.”

“All right. Well, you’d better get your hands inside Rico then, before the bastard dies.” He doesn’t look at me while he talks. He stares intently at Maria Rosa, unwavering, hands steady. I think about changing my mind, about telling him to shoot her, but would he be able to do it before she killed me? Probably not.

So there’s nothing left for it. My hands are covered in blood and dirt from when I toppled forward a minute ago. I scrub them against my jeans, doing what I can to get them clean, and then I lean over the ghostly white body in front of me and I do something neither my father nor Sloane have probably ever done: I stick my bare, filthy dirty fingers inside an open stomach wound. It feels innately wrong, and, worryingly, it feels cool. Should he really be this cold? The human body should sit at an average 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, but the inside of Rico’s stomach feels a lot cooler. This could be normal, though. I’m not a doctor. I know shit about trauma and what happens when someone goes into shock.

“Can you feel it?” Maria Rosa asks.

“No.” All I can feel is intestines and a whole lot of blood that I’m assuming is not meant to be there. I twist my fingers around inside the wound, attempting to locate anything metallic, hard or sharp, but my fingers feel like they’re tearing through wet paper. It definitely doesn’t feel right. I think I’m killing him even quicker. My suspicions are confirmed when Rico starts convulsing even harder.

“What are you doing? What did you do?” Maria Rosa screams.

I pull my hand out of Rico, choking on panic, readying myself for the sound of the gunshot that will end my life. Do bullets travel faster than the speed of sound? I think they do. At least I won’t have to hear the herald of my own demise. I guess that’s something.

My heart nearly explodes out of my chest when I do hear the gunshot, though. I feel instantly numb. My breath fires in and out of my lungs in impossibly short blasts, and I flinch, waiting for the pain to kick in.

It doesn’t happen.

Through the high-pitched buzzing in my ears, I can hear someone roaring in anger, and someone else screaming at the top of their lungs. That’s what I should sound like. I should sound like I’m in agony, like the person screaming, and yet I feel nothing.

Hands are on me next, pulling at me, patting me down.

Rebel. Rebel’s scooping me up in his arms, lifting me to my feet. Hold me to him, swearing over and over again in my ear.

“Fuck, Soph. Fuck. Fucking hell. Are you okay?”

I look down, and Maria Rosa is on her side, clawing at Rico’s very dead body. She’s bleeding from her shoulder, blood everywhere, all over my white tennis shoes. Her black mascara has bled all down her face too, now. She’s the one who’s screaming, the one who got shot. Not me. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

“Soph! Tell me you’re not hurt!” Rebel shakes me, trying to get a response.

“Yes! Yeah, I’m fine. I’m not hurt.”

Rebel lets me go then. I think I might fall, but I somehow manage to keep myself upright. I watch him as he stalks around the compound, glaring into the faces of the Widow Makers who are still standing around us with their guns in their hands.

“I had to do that?” he hollers. “You’re all standing here with your dicks in your hands? I had to get here and do that, and none of you acted?” He stops in front of Cade, his face less than an inch away from his vice president’s, his chest rising and falling so fast. He looks crazy. He looks like he’s about to straight up murder Cade. “What the f*ck were you thinking?” he grinds out.