Page 73 of Relentless
“Kara!” he shouted.
The rustling of cloth as someone shifted, then paused, reverberated across his body. Then to his horror, he heard another grunt, the swish of air, and the sound of a powerful kick connecting with its target. A target Ethan very much feared was Kara.
“Kara!” he shouted again. This time he was closer. So close that he could hear the assailant’s rapid breathing. Fewer footsteps now pounded the floor of the hall, and a sliver of relief edged its way into his psyche. With fewer people to get in the way, his chances of reaching her increased.
“I will find you and I will kill you,” Ethan said, feeling his way forward.
No one answered, then he heard a chuckle. “I’ll take my chances,” a man said, before turning and running down the hall to the exit.
Without a shadow of doubt, Ethan knew it was Hilton he’d heard. Knew it was Hilton who’d attacked Kara. A thousand questions flitted through his mind. How had he arrived in California so soon after the attack on Astrid? How did he orchestrate the power outage and gain access to the venue?
Those questions would wait, though. Kara came first.
Dropping to all fours, he inched his way forward, thrusting his hands in front of him, searching the space as he moved. Frustration crawled through him when he continued to come up empty-handed. He was about to give voice to his fears—even if only in a shout that no one but him would hear—when his hand connected with something.
Not pausing for a second, he wrapped his fingers around it. A foot. Kara’s foot.
He shifted his position so that he was sitting on the ground rather than kneeling. Then slowly, he felt his way up her body, keeping his touch light and talking to her in a quiet voice the entire time. He refused to think about the fact that she didn’t respond.
When he reached her shoulders, he slid his fingers around to her neck and felt for a pulse. His heart stuttered when he felt nothing. Rejecting any thought other than his certainty that she lived, he shifted his touch a little closer to her trachea and closed his eyes. Maybe he was praying. Maybe he was dying a little himself. But whatever his body was doing, he wasn’t going to give up on her.
Then he felt it. A weak beat against his two fingers. A tear tracked down his cheek, and he sucked in a breath in an effort not to cry out in relief. He had no idea the extent of her injuries or her chance of recovery. But so long as she had a pulse, she had a chance. And Kara was a fighter; she wouldn’t let that chance slip away.
Unwilling to move her for fear of doing more damage, Ethan did the only thing he knew to do. He curled up behind her, shielding her body with his. With every beat of his heart, he gave her his warmth, his strength, and his love, as they waited for what would come next.
* * *
He lost track of time as he lay there, counting the shallow movements of her chest. When the lights flickered on, he glanced at his watch and realized that what had felt like a lifetime had been less than ten minutes.
“I’m going to get help, honey,” he said, unsure if she could hear him, but hoping she could. Slowly, he lifted his arm from where he’d had it wrapped around her torso and pushed himself up.
Bile rose in his throat when he caught his first glimpse of her injuries. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, but he shoved down the panic and fear as he swiftly cataloged what he saw. A boot print on the front of her shirt. Her wrist bent at an odd angle. A gash about four inches long running from the middle of her temple into her hairline. Blood still seeped from the cut, dripping down her swollen cheek and pooling at the side of her nose near her eye.
He pulled his shirt off and very gently used it to wipe around her eye and nose. When both areas were clean and free from blood, he looked up and scanned the area. He had no idea if the shooter was still in the venue, but he doubted it. Not after hearing Hilton’s last words and hasty retreat.
Spotting his phone several feet away, he rose, withdrew his weapon from his ankle holster, and proceeded cautiously down the hall. He heard a ruckus as he passed the door that he’d come out of minutes earlier, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t need another tussle with Tia to slow him down.
Reaching his phone, he snatched it up and assessed the damage. It looked a little worse for the wear, and a new crack arced across the bottom. But the screen came to life at his touch, and it worked.
Knowing the police wouldn’t allow EMTs in until they cleared the building, he didn’t bother calling 9-1-1. Instead, he dialed Chad.
“Where the fuck are you?” Chad barked when he answered the phone.
“In the hallway, just outside the room. Kara’s hurt,” he said.
Chad paused. “How hurt?”
Ethan cleared his throat as he reached her side again. Before answering, he lowered himself to the ground and sat protectively near her head. A position that gave him line of sight to everything around them.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s…unconscious. Barely breathing. Her pulse is weak, but it’s there. I think she was kicked in the stomach and a couple of times in the head, too.”
Chad mumbled something to someone else in the room before returning to the conversation. “Was she caught in a stampede?”
“No.” Ethan shook his head even though his cousin couldn’t see him. “It was Hilton. Or I assume it was him. I never saw him. But I heard him.”
A beat passed before Chad swore. “He’s a dead man walking.”
“I think he knows that,” Ethan replied. Then he relayed the few words Hilton had spoken before taking off. Either someone else—someone who elicited more fear than murder charges—was pulling Hilton’s strings, or he was well aware that the life expectancy of a trafficker was limited.
