Page 60 of Pretty Lethal
He bundles me into his arms before getting to his feet. My head rests against his shoulders, and knowing that I’m safe in his arms, my heavy eyelids drift closed. I’m bone weary, but my body refuses to give in just yet, and instead I listen as Wilder calls someone—Hawk, presumably.
I can hear the phone ringing on the other end for some time before Hawk’s gruff tone comes down the line. “What?”
Despite the horrors of tonight, I smile at hearing his voice, knowing it won’t be long until I’m bundled up in bed with all three of them, safe and protected.
“Get the fuck out here. Shit’s gone down. We’re leaving.”
Immediately sounding more alert, Hawk begins rapid-firing questions, snarling when, rather than answering, Wilder simply says, “Just get the fuck outside,” before abruptly hanging up.
“That was rude,” I mumble, half-asleep.
“Sorry, Angel,” Wilder says in a far softer voice—one he only ever uses with me. “But manners aren’t high up my list of priorities at the moment.”
“We’re going to get you home and cleaned up, then tucked into bed,” he says after a moment.
“Will all of you stay with me?”
“Angel, you could ask for anything you want right now—the moon on a string, an army of demon hellspawn, magical freakin’ beans—and I’d give it to you.”
“Mmm,” I respond sleepily. “Tempting, but all I want is the three of you.”
I feel him press a chaste kiss to my temple. “Then the three of us you shall have.”
I must doze off briefly as I’m jarred awake by Hawk’s low growl. “Is she okay? What the fuck happened?”
My eyes are too heavy to open, but I feel him brush the hair out of my face, his warm hand cupping my cold cheek as Wilder grunts, “I’ll explain in the car. Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”
We move at a fast pace across campus, and I doze on and off until I hear car doors slam shut and crack an eye open to find myself curled up on Wilder’s lap in the back of Hawk’s car. The heat blasts through the vents, and it’s not long before I’m warm and toastie.
The second we pass through the Ridgeway College gates, I pass out.
Chapter19
HAWK
“Just get the fuck outside.”
Fear isn’t an emotion I like to acknowledge. I can count on one hand the number of times it has pulsed so potently that I felt paralyzed by it.
The first was when I discovered Hadley had disappeared.
The second was when Emilia went missing from campus.
The third was when she strode into that kitchen and faced Mel with her chin lifted.
The fourth and final was thirty seconds ago—waking up to Wilder’s name lighting up my phone and him telling me that shit’s gone down while I slept.
Fuckingslept!
Like I’m a goddamn motherfucking kid who needs a midday nap.
I move on autopilot as I pull on my jeans and hoodie and stuff my feet into my sneakers before rushing out the door, not giving a single shit about anything else I might need in my haste to find out what happened and to see Emilia with my own eyes.
I don’t know what went down, but I could hear in Wilder’s voice that whatever it is, it’s bad.
Really fucking bad.
The only other time I’ve heard him sound so broken up was when Emilia left Pac without so much as a goodbye. Except, it wasn’t purely a broken heart that I heard in Wilder’s voice. It was complete and utter devastation. The kind one doesn’t fully recover from. The kind that trails you around like a shadow, taunting you at your weakest moments.
