Page 66 of Mason

I don’t know why I ask. I don’t know why I set down the gun earlier, either. Maybe it’s shock setting in. Detachment. Acceptance. I’ve cheated death twice now since knowing him. It makes sense if my luck is out.

“If I wanted to kill you, there wouldn’t be a tourniquet on your leg,” he says, shaking his head. “But carrying you out of here might kill me.”

Carrying me out? I don’t know whether to cry or scream.

I scan his frame. He’s still wearing his leather jacket, shielding most of him. “Where did it get you?”

I thought it was over before he showed up. His brother—Grady, I think that’s what he called him—had the gun pressed to my temple, telling me all the vile ways he planned on defiling my corpse. When he pulled the trigger, I thought I was dead, but when I looked up and saw he’d shot Mason, not me, the strangest mix of emotions ran through me. Shock. Horror. Relief.

He came back.

“Shoulder,” he mutters, slowly rising to his feet while looking at his brother. He’s no longer breathing. “I need to make a call. I need help to get you to the hospital.”

I blink, sure I misheard him. “The hospital?”

His eyes move from the lifeless body to me. “Do you plan on doing surgery yourself?”

I shake my head. “But is it safe there?”

He glances back at his brother and swipes at the cut on his jaw, a grazing gunshot leaving a vicious line along the right side of his face. “It will be. Your father will be there.”

* * *

“No one in. No one out. Got it?”

Christ, I can’t even catch a break from Papa in my dreams. Rachel’s going to crack up when I tell her about this. She always says he’s going to find a way to keep an eye on me there, too.

It’s not until my eyes flutter open that I realize Papa’s not in my dreams. He’s by my bedside in a vinyl chair, somehow looking a decade older than the last time I saw him, his black hair messy and dusted with gray. The wrinkles around his eyes cut deeper, and he’s not wearing his usual suit coat and tie.

“You look like hell,” I croak, managing a smirk.

He jumps so high that he practically drops his cell phone, looking at me with wide, watery eyes. “Emily!” His arms outstretch for a hug, but he hesitates at the mound of bandages decorating my body, so he settles for squeezing my hand instead. “You’re awake!”

Obviously, but it’s not the time to be a smartass. Besides, the last time I gave him a hint of attitude, he slapped me into the next century. I might’ve been kidnapped, but he’s still on my shit list for that.

I still feel like I could sleep for another year after surgery. I vaguely remember the anesthesiologist counting down from ten. The Monopoly guy lookalike claimed I’d be out by the time I reached five, but I remember nothing after nine. All I remember is the chatter in the emergency room about a rod in my tibia and an orbital fracture. And Mason.

I scan the hospital room, the pale blue walls a welcome view after staring at nothing but logs for who knows how long. Vertical blinds cover a large window, the twinkling of streetlights peeking through the slats. A dry-erase board hangs on the wall facing me, my nurse’s name scribbled in pink marker with a heart beside it.

Papa’s the only one here, hunched in the chair and watching my every move like I might shatter into a thousand pieces. No one else bothered to come.

“Where is he?”

Papa’s hand compresses mine. “You’re safe now.”

I clench my fist in his hold. “Where is he?”

I want to see him. I need to see him.

Mason and the man from Down Under—Dixon—carried me from the cabin to a waiting pickup truck, traveling down a thorn-ridden path to a dirt road that seemed to go on forever, passing a stranded sports car and an SUV on the way.

Dixon drove while I laid in the center of the bench-style seat, my injured leg propped on Mason, who kept it pointed at the ceiling. The car reeked of blood when we got in, but I didn’t question it, as my own blood soon mixed in along with Mason’s.

The ride here took ages, and both men helped me to the emergency wing, though Mason was the only one who stayed in the room with me until the doctors wheeled me back for surgery. I haven’t seen him since.

“He’s being dealt with.” Papa’s eyes show nothing but frigidity, turning my blood to ice.

“If you hurt him…” I breathe, snatching my hand from his. “I’ll never speak to you again.” I mean it. I’ll run off with Rachel and never look back. I don’t care. She’ll be more than willing to, too. She’s always hounding me to live a little. I’m ready to live a lot now that I’ve seen the ugliness life has to offer.

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