I’m a little too smug when I see the bastard sitting there, unconscious, in his own urine. “Come on. He won’t be out forever.”
Sloane’s mumbled cursing drops off, as she turns slowly around. “You didn’t kill him?”
I wrap an arm around her waist and begin to guide her forcibly out of the room. “Julio Perez is an evil son of a bitch, Sloane, but he was right about one thing. I won’t kill an unarmed man.”
******
It becomes instantly clear why Julio’s guards didn’t come running at the sound of their boss’ cries: they didn’t hear them. The engines of countless Mercedes, Lamborghinis and Harleys drown out everything but the loudest of shouts in the front courtyard as people arrive in plumes of orange dust from the desert for tonight’s gathering.
Alexis is a cold, limp weight in my arms. The blonde hadn’t wanted us to take her from the kitchen, but a few sharp words from Sloane and the bitch backed off. We spend a full thirty seconds out in the open, looking for my car; Michael locates it parked to one side, covered in dust from being exposed to the desert for four days. I deposit Alexis in the back seat, and Sloane gets in after her, cradling her sister’s head in her lap.
I take the driver’s side and Michael gets in on the right. Cade stands at the window, eyes searching the crowd of people, looking for a way out. “You’re gonna need to be quick, bro. I’ll call Julio’s boys inside and then we’ll be right behind you.”
I start the engine, revving it like crazy. We’re set to go. Cade holds out his knuckles and I bump fists with him. He’s about to head inside, when a piercing scream tears above all of the noise and Alaska comes barrelling out of the villa.
The engines drown out her hysterical shouting, but one of the guards hears her well enough and signals the others. They charge inside, guns at the ready.
“Better go now, man. We’ll catch you up.” Cade thumps the side of the car and runs back inside the villa. We do as he suggests, and we get the hell out of there.
It takes three hours to reach the hospital in San Jacinto—Julio knows about the hospital in San Bernadino, so we had to take a detour—and I think Alexis has died a total of seven times on the journey. Her pulse is barely there anymore, weak, irregular and thready, and I feel totally numb. A heavy silence reigns supreme inside the car as Zeth drives, and I try to forget where I am. To forget everything that’s happened since I woke up this morning.
It’s pitch black by the time we pull up outside the hospital, and just the sight of the place makes me burst into tears. The ambulance parked up out front and the lights blaring from every single window, promising help, promising rescue, is more than I can take. We got her here. Somehow she made it this far.
Zeth collects her from the backseat again, and we run inside. Michael stays with the car. Michael takes the car away. I don’t know what happens to Michael. All I care about is Alexis.
The nurse on duty at reception drops her pen when she sees us. We must look like hell, covered in blood and dust, carrying a half dead girl between us. I’m rattling off Lexi’s stats before the girl can even process what she’s seeing.
“Gunshot wound to the abdomen. Severe kidney damage, hemodynamically unstable, tachycardic and hypertensive. She needs to be booked into an OR now!”
The nurse responds quickly, sending out an emergency page for all available bodies; a crash team and two doctors arrive almost immediately, taking Alexis without so much as a backward glance at me and Zeth. The nurse sticks around, though. What’s happened to her? What’s my relationship to the patient? What treatment has she received? Allergies? End of life, do not resuscitate wishes? I answer everything through a daze of exhaustion and a level of adrenalin that now feels toxic.
After that it’s just Zeth and me. Alone. In a hospital waiting room.
“Sloane?”
I can’t force myself to look at him. Instead I burst into tears. I let him wrap his arms around me, and I bawl my eyes out for god knows how long, feeling weaker and weaker with each and every passing moment. The likelihood of Lexi making it is so slim that I can’t even calculate such low odds. And what happened back at the compound… Zeth killing Teo…
“Sloane, she’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay.”
“How can you say that?” I push him away, batting the tears out of my eyes. “How?”
Zeth is just as composed as he’s been throughout this whole nightmare day; he reaches out to me and sweeps my hair out of my face, shaking his head. “Because she’s your sister, angry girl. If she’s half as strong as you are, then she’s gonna be just fine.”