Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 94834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I get him through the living room and as we try to get to the door, I can’t help but glance toward Cara’s door. How the hell is she sleeping through all of this? Surely she must have heard the gunshots.
We reach the door, and as I struggle to open it while trying to keep Easton up, thoughts of Cara fade to the back of my mind. It feels as though it takes a lifetime before we’re breaking out into the hall and I scream out, finding Zade, Dalton, and Sawyer coming through the main door at the other end of the corridor. “HELP,” I cry, my knees buckling under Easton’s weight, falling to the ground. “He’s been shot.”
They’re running before the words are even out of my mouth.
Zade reaches us first, his eyes scanning over Easton in horror. “What the fuck happened?” he demands as Sawyer barges through to my apartment, going to see for himself.
I shake my head as Zade and Dalton dive in, relieving me of Easton’s weight and hauling him back to his feet. “I don’t know,” I tell them as Zade kicks in his apartment door, not wasting time searching for his key. “Easton did the sweep, he checked my room and made sure it was clear, then when I was going to bed, there was someone in there waiting for me.”
“How the fuck did he get shot?” Zade spits, clearly not interested in the smaller details.
“How do you think he got shot?” I throw back at him, quickly following the guys into Zade’s apartment and pulling out a chair before they dump Easton on it. “The asshole was trying to drag me out the window and when he saw Easton, he took his shot.”
“Fuck,” Dalton mutters, his head whipping back toward the door, ready to race in after Sawyer.
“The fucker’s dead,” Easton grunts, his skin clammy and pale.
Dalton crosses to the kitchen and searches through the cabinets before pulling out a first aid kit and bringing it back to the table. He tears it open, pulling out all sorts of medical equipment, and my eyes widen, realizing these idiots fully plan on handling this themselves. “What are you doing?” I question. “We need to call an ambulance. He’s going to need surgery.”
Zade grabs Easton’s shirt and tears it off him, and it doesn’t go unnoticed that the charcoal drawing I did this morning is still faintly there. Drawing that feels like a lifetime ago. My gaze lingers on the portrait, and I quickly realize there’s something different about this. It’s not charcoal at all. It’s ink.
My gaze widens, realizing that after taking off on the rooftop today, he went to have my drawing tattooed on his back. Before I can mention it aloud, Zade curses. “Fuck, no exit wound.”
“Shit,” Easton says with a heavy sigh as Dalton takes off to the kitchen again.
“What?” I rush out as Sawyer comes hurrying back through the door, his eyes wide as he glances over Easton, taking in the bullet hole and the blood seeping from it. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” Zade says, clenching his jaw as he searches through the first aid supplies and picks out a pair of tweezers that look scary as fuck, “that the bullet is still in there and we’ve gotta go in to get it out.”
My face falls, realizing how painful that’s going to be. I gape at Easton just as Dalton returns with a bottle of whiskey and hands it to him. Easton eagerly lifts it to his lips, not waiting a damn second.
I shake my head in shock. Surely they’re not actually considering doing this themselves. “This is insane,” I tell them as Sawyer joins us, standing at my side. “He needs a doctor.”
“Zade knows what he’s doing,” Sawyer says, before getting a full view of Easton’s back and scoffing. “Man, you’re fucking addicted to ink.”
Easton shakes his head, his eyes getting heavy. “It’s not an addiction unless you’ve sucked dick for it,” he says, just as Zade steps into him, holding the tweezers. My eyes go wide as horror grips my chest. This is really happening.
“Where’s Cara?” Zade asks. “Why wasn’t she helping you?”
Sawyer lets out a frustrated sigh, answering before I get the chance. “The fucker slipped her something. She’s out cold, but all her vitals are fine. She just needs to sleep it off.”
Understanding dawns on me, answering the question I’d wondered about earlier as Easton glances up at me, looking like death warmed over. “Show me your hand.”
I gape at him and reluctantly lift my hand, showing him the deep cuts across my palm from the glass, knowing he needs this distraction. He presses his lips into a hard line before muttering something under his breath. He shakes his head, and before I know it, Dalton scoops up my hand. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?” he demands, grabbing another chair and forcing me into it. “You’re going to need stitches.”