Page 120 of Crave
A gurgled scream followed—then silence.
I stood over him, my chest heaving, the warehouse spinning around me as I took in the fetid scent of blood and betrayal. Then a wounded sound, low…desperate.
I spun finding Kieran on the ground, barely conscious, blood soaking through his clothes.
Fuck.
My feet moved too slow, stumbling forward, before I dropped to the ground, grabbing Kieran’s collar and dragged him up. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
By the time I shoved Kieran into the passenger’s seat of my car, the world was tilting. Blood soaked through my shirt and dripped from my busted lip and the deep gash of my shoulder.
But it was Kieran I worried about. His breathing was shallow. His fingers twitched, as if trying to move. I reached into my pocket as I slammed the passenger’s door closed and stumbled around the front of the car, all but falling into the driver’s seat, pulling out my phone with blood-slicked fingers, then dialled a number.
No hospitals.
No fucking outsiders.
A voice answered, low and sharp. “Talk.”
My grip tightened. “I need a clean fix. Fast. No questions.”
Silence.
Then.
“How bad?”
I glanced at Kieran. His shirt was soaked through, his skin deathly pale. “Dying, but not dead yet.”
Another pause. Then, “Same place as last time. Thirty minutes.”
Click.
The call ended, leaving me to slump back against the seat, then press my hand against my bleeding shoulder, my eyes fixed on the warehouse straight ahead.
Fucking cartel.
They think I’m going to give her up?
I reached out, grasping the wheel before I stabbed the button for the engine…they thought wrong. My fingers tightened around the wheel, knuckles white, veins throbbing.
They’d learn who the fuck they were dealing with.
They’d fucking learn.
I took a sharp turn, my hold tight on the wheel despite the slick of blood that coated my hand. Kieran was dying next to me. I wasn’t fucking losing him—not like this.
So I pushed the car harder taking the unmarked path deeper into the industrial outskirts of the city. The kind of place where bodies went to disappear—or, in Kieran’s case, to be saved in silence.
I glanced at the slumped body in the passenger’s seat and clenched my jaw, turning my focus back to the rundown auto shop looming up ahead. A single light flickered above the back entrance as I pulled hard into the space and laid on the horn twice.
A second later the back door cracked open. A lean man stepped out, his gray hoodie pulled low, cigarette dangling from his lips as he headed my way.
I shoved the car into park, killed the engine and climbed out. The headlights bounced against the dented roller door as I rounded the front of the car.
“Jesus Christ.” The man exhaled smoke, eyes dropping to Kieran’s limp form as I yanked open the passenger’s door. “You look like hell.”
“He’s the one I’m here for.” My voice was raw, my patience razor-thin.
