City of the Lost (Casey Duncan #1)(111)

“I’ve finally figured out exactly what you did to me.” He starts walking backward. “I’m going to repay you, and if you want to stop me, you’d better pull that trigger.”

Dalton’s fingers flex, and I know he’s thinking fast, thinking of what else he can do to stop Jacob, because he can’t shoot him, not his brother. But if he lets him walk away and he attacks someone else?

I stumble backward and fall, gasping, hand clapped over my chest wound. Jacob takes off as Dalton runs to my side. Yes, I faked the fall, but when I try to rise again, blood gushes between my fingers and pain rips through me. Dalton yanks off his jacket and pushes it against the wound, saying, “I’m sorry, I’m so f*cking sorry. It’ll be okay. Everything will be—”

“Radio,” I manage, and he curses at needing the reminder. He did bring it—like me, he doesn’t cross the line between reckless and stupid. He calls Anders. When there’s no answer, his eyes widen, as he frantically pushes the Call button. Then we hear the hum of an ATV.

“I can … I can walk,” I say, but he picks me up, pressing my hand against the jacket to hold it to my chest wound, and I feel blood rushing from my arm and my leg, but I say nothing, because he’s already panicked enough, apologies rushing out on an endless loop of “I’m sorry, f*ck, I’m sorry.”

He runs, carrying me, as fast as he can manage. When he stumbles and I gasp, he slows, but that only makes the apologies come faster, and I tell him I’m okay, even though I know I’m not, the blood streaming, consciousness fading, my body shaking. I tell him anyway—I’m fine, just fine—and he keeps running until he staggers right in front of the ATV. Anders shouts, “Shit!” and brakes so fast he nearly vaults over the front.

As soon as the ATV stops, Dalton races over and lays me in the back seat.

“Holy shit,” Anders says. “What—?”

“Gotta get her back. Now.”

“She’s bleeding, Eric.”

“I know!” Dalton snaps, and tries to shove Anders into the passenger seat, but the deputy pushes back, saying, “I mean that we need to staunch the bleeding first,” and from the look on Dalton’s face, you’d think I’d already bled out and it was all his fault. Curses and more apologies as he helps Anders get me out onto the ground.

“I’ve got this,” Anders says.

“No, I—”

Anders holds him back, saying, “I’ve got it. You want to help? Give me your belt, your shirt …”

Dalton strips them off as Anders’s gaze runs over me, assessing.

“Left thigh, right arm, upper right chest,” I say.

“You’re still with us,” he says.

I nod. “Conserving energy. Chest worst. Didn’t go in deep. Just …” I hiss in pain as I inhale.

“Relax and let me look.”

I lie back. Dalton’s tearing his shirt into strips as Anders pushes mine up over my ribs.

“There’s water in the back,” he says. “Eric—”

“Got it.”

“Can I ask what the hell happened?”

Dalton hesitates. “It’s my fault. I—”

“We got separated,” I say. “I was attacked by a hostile.”

“Shit. This close to town? We need to do something about them,” Anders says grimly. “And we might need to reconsider the possibility our killer isn’t from Rockton after all.”

Dalton falters, the guilt and fear so strong it seems to paralyze him, as if he’s back in that moment, facing his brother.

Facing his brother.

I haven’t had time to make sense of that. I still don’t. I only know that something is wrong with Jacob. Whatever Jacob says, Dalton’s sin against him cannot warrant this level of vengeance. It just can’t.

“Eric?” I say, and he snaps out of it, mumbling more apologies as he hurries over with the water.

Anders cleans and binds my wounds as best he can. With every light-headed dip toward darkness, I shake myself back, and I manage to stay conscious until they load me into the ATV. Then I lose the battle.





Three



I wake in bed. My bed. Beth is checking one of my dressings. Dalton’s sitting on a chair he’s carried up from downstairs. He’s lost in thought, startled when I croak, “How bad is it?”

“Could have been worse,” Beth says.

I chuckle, which sends pain stabbing through me. “Damage report?”

She rattles it off matter-of-factly. Diana can call that cold, but it’s how some of us process and deliver data best.

The leg and arm were both shallow cuts. They hadn’t required stitches and shouldn’t scar, but hell, it’s not like I’d notice a few more anyway.

The chest wound isn’t as shallow, but Dalton pulled Jacob off before the blade penetrated far. It scraped my rib, which kept it from nicking my lung. I’m not going to bounce off to work in the morning, but I’ll be fine. In the meantime, the fact that I am relatively unconcerned about my injuries suggests I got a nice dose of opiates while I was unconscious. Beth confirms that.

“I also did a transfusion,” Beth says. “I have blood in the clinic, but since you’re a universal recipient and someone was very eager to make amends for getting separated in the woods, I did a direct transfusion.”