Page 162 of Himbo Hitman
My heartbeat is in my ears.
I’m breathing so hard it feels useless. Like all the air is going to my head and not my lungs.
“Fuck! Perry!”
St. Clare’s voice is coming from somewhere, but through thefog, something else is registering. Something burning hot and immediate.
I glance down, blinking hard, as my feet threaten to go out from under me, and the more I blink, the more I can’t figure out what I’m seeing.
Since when is the T-shirt Lars bought me red?
Someone grabs me, and my legs buckle. Confusion clouds any rational thought that I had as I fling my gaze around wildly, trying to find Luther, Danvers, Arlie … Are we even safe here? Are we about to be killed?
Danvers’s face swims into view, blank, staring eyes, blood pooling from his neck, and when I twist to where Luther last was, I’m not sure if I’m imagining the hole in his head or not.
St. Clare is saying something, and those shots must have beenreallyloud because I can’t make out the words. Just the tears rolling over his face.
I flinch as Arlie joins him and try to get away.
“B-bad.”
Shit. I’m burning up and freezing at the same time. Where’s the climate control in here?
“S-s-stop,” I say, trying to wipe at St. Clare’s tears. He’s slowly coming into focus, but I can’t reach him. Did the gunshot fuck my aim up to? “A-am I shaking? D-do I l-look sh-shaky to you?”
“Why didn’t you stick to the plan?”
He screams it so loud I pick up on it this time.
“M-my bracel-let,” I try to explain. Try and fail by the way he’s panicking. Pressure comes from somewhere and almost makes me want to scream, but the sudden pain gets swept up in all the jumble and blurry and swampiness.
I just want to make him smile again. Want him to stop worrying and remember all of that forever we still have to look forward to.
“R-Reilly?” The word hurts, but I only need a few more. To tell him how I feel, to have someone I belong with.
I don’t remember much after that.
CHAPTER FIFTY
ST. CLARE
My legs are bouncingout a rhythm as I sit in the hospital chair, waiting for any kind of news and wanting to be literally anywhere else. Lars’s hand closes over my knee again, and he murmurs, “He’ll be okay,” for only the millionth time since we got here.
Margot was allowed to go through when she tore in here in an oversized jacket, polka dot pants, and odd shoes, and after that flurry of activity, it’s been dead out here.
I internally cringe at my choice of words.
It’s beenstill. Silent. The waiting is digging into my nervous system and sending it haywire.
I don’t know what Everett and Arlie told the ambulance about the shooting, and they took way too long to even call one for my liking, so if he’s not okay … if he … if he …
The automatic door beside the waiting area swings open, and Margot bursts out of it. “Blood loss, lots of pain meds, but should be okay.”
Every last scrap of oxygen and tension whistles out of me. I hunch over my knees, feeling even more sick than I was a second ago, while Lars rubs my back.
“So he’s fine.”
“They’ll know more once he’s conscious, but no vital organswere hit.” And like she’s been holding herself up by sheer will, she drops suddenly into a crouch, arms wrapped tight around her knees. “He got so fucking lucky.”
