Riley grins back at me, and I realize too late what the two assholes have been doing—distracting me enough to calm me down and keep my mind off the bullshit that’s out of my control.
Letting out a sigh, I look back at my girl and, while keeping my hands on her wound, I lean down and brush my lips over hers. “I love you, Brielle,” I tell her. “You’re my whole fucking world, and if you fight to keep yourself alive now, then I promise you in return, I’ll fight for us every day for the rest of our lives. I’ll make you so goddamn happy, you’ll want to pulverize me. You got that? You have to live because I don’t want to face a world where you’re not doing everything in your fucking power to make me want to hate fuck you until you scream.”
“Swear it?” she questions, her lips moving against mine, her voice barely audible.
“I fucking swear it, Killer. You and me … maybe Riley too, but really, we should probably find him some other poor girl to sink his claws into before he starts thinking this is a group project.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Her eyes flutter again, and a wave of panic soars through my chest, nearly crippling me. If it weren’t for the fact that my position here is what’s keeping her alive, I would have succumbed to the horror ages ago.
With the first responders getting closer by the minute, Chanel scrambles to her feet and races toward them, waving her hands and screaming for them to hurry, probably feeling just as helpless as I do. But the fact they’re close enough for Chanel to reach has relief pulsing through my veins.
They’re so close. We’re gonna make it. Everyone is going to be okay.
The cops come blasting in behind the paramedics, covering the property like a plague of red and blue flashing lights. I can’t help but glance back at Colby’s lifeless body, unease and fear gripping my chest and squeezing impossibly tight.
There’s no way the cops are going to let me walk away from this. Not now. Not after ending his life with my bare hands.
Catching my stare, Riley shakes his head. “Don’t fucking go there, man,” he tells me. “Bri, Addie, and Jax are what’s important. They need you more than anything. Go to the hospital. I’ll stay here and deal with Colby.”
“But the cops—”
“No,” Riley says. “The cops don’t know shit. They don’t know it was you or what went down. Just get in the fucking ambulance with Bri. I’ll stay here. Besides, their first priority is to try and save him.”
“There were too many witnesses,” I say. “They’ll fucking know.”
The first ambulance comes to a screeching halt, stealing my attention away from my best friend as Hudson’s patience wears thin. He scoops Addie off the ground as Ilaria curses him out. “HELP!” he hollers as the paramedics bail from the rig. He races toward them, Ilaria barreling after him, her hands soaked with Addison’s blood.
They tear open the back of the ambulance, and I watch Hudson all but toss her inside. Two paramedics immediately get to work, surrounding Addie as Ilaria drops to her knees in the grass, letting out a heart-wrenching sob of despair.
Hudson clambers into the back of the ambulance, refusing to leave her side, gripping Addie’s hand as the paramedics do their thing. Before I know it, the other ambulances and cop cars are coming to a stop too.
Relief pounds through my chest, but Riley isn’t done with me yet. He grips my chin tight and forces my stare back to him. “Listen here, there were plenty of witnesses, each one of them able to clarify that Colby came here looking for trouble. It was self-defense. Nothing else. You saved Jax and protected Bri by keeping him down. You did what you had to do to preserve the lives of the people you love. You got that? This wasn’t cold-blooded murder, Tanner, it was self-defense.”
My gaze shoots back across to Colby’s lifeless body, and an ache squeezes my gut. Either way Riley looks at it, I killed a man, and that will forever live on my conscience.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I whip around to find a paramedic standing over me. “Let me take over, son. You’ve done well.”
I scramble out of the way as the paramedic moves in, assessing Bri with a skilled gaze. “Stab wound to the lower abdomen,” he says as another paramedic moves in on her other side. They get to work, taking her vitals, and before I can ask how she is, they place her onto a gurney.
“Tanner?” Bri panics, her eyes wide and terrified.
“I’m right here.” I rush in, gripping onto her outstretched hand with everything I have. Up ahead, I notice the door of another ambulance closing on Jax, leaving Arizona and Logan behind.
“Hey,” the guy saving Bri’s life says, catching my attention. “The lights are on. That’s a good sign.”
I swallow hard and nod. “None of this is a fucking good sign.”
“Too right,” he responds as Bri’s gurney lifts off the ground, finally stable enough to move. We hurry down the hill as others run in the opposite direction, heading for Colby’s body, but I keep my mind locked and loaded on Bri.
She’s loaded into the back of the ambulance, and I scramble in beside her, trying to keep out of the way as I watch Riley race in beside Ilaria and scoop her off the dirty ground. He pulls her into his arms, holding her tight and letting her use his shoulder to cry on. Chanel weeps beside them, all of our friends just as terrified as I am.
Bri refuses to release my hand, and I’m fucking grateful, needing her touch more than I need to breathe. As they close the back doors, I watch Addison’s ambulance take off at top speed, the sirens and lights blasting through the night.
Letting out a shaky breath, I give Brielle a warm, encouraging smile. At some point, I will have to call my mom and tell her, for the second time, that her baby girl’s life is hanging in the balance.
Chapter 2
BRIELLE
Pieces of a murmured conversation trickle through the foggy images in my mind, and I let out a pained groan, refusing to open my eyes as reality comes crashing back to me.
The races, Jax, Addison, the knife … Colby.
Fuck.
Tanner.
Desperation to check on him courses through my body, and I strain to open my eyes, but the fogginess keeps me locked down. I must be on some pretty intense painkillers, maybe morphine. I’m not going to lie, it kinda feels good.
At some point, Colby’s knife slashed through my abdomen, and I know it must have hurt, but the adrenaline kept me going. All that mattered was Tanner, until I was laying in the bloodied grass with his hands pressed against my wound. That fucking hurt. I’d prefer to have my ass rammed at a million miles per hour with no lube than to experience the sheer agony of that stab wound again. Right now, I feel perfectly fine, though I’m not foolish enough to think this is going to last. The pain meds will wear off and when they do, it’s going to suck … a lot.
Despite my pain and blood loss, it was the devastation in Tanner’s eyes that nearly killed me. After watching Jax go down and seeing his sister in Hudson’s arms, he thought he was going to lose me too. I could see the fear in his eyes, but he did what he could to save my life, all while relentlessly promising that he wasn’t going to let me die.