Page 152 of Found by the Pack
“Or I—” My voice falters. I tighten my grip on the phone. “The cops will see this. They’ll know. Everyone will know.”
He bares his teeth, amused, while the others spread out around him. The fight hits me before I can think.
The first one lunges, and instinct takes over. I swing, my knuckles cracking against cartilage, and blood spurts down his face. He howls, clutching his nose, staggering back.
Adrenaline floods me. I pivot, slam my elbow into another’s jaw. He drops, spitting red onto the pavement.
But there are too many.
Hands clamp around my arms, wrenching them back until my shoulders scream. A fist drives into my ribs, white-hot pain exploding. My glasses slide down my nose, the world tilting.
“Get the phone,” one of them snarls.
I twist, shove my head forward, and the crunch of bone gives me savage satisfaction. Another nose broken. His scream echoes in my skull, but victory is short-lived.
A boot slams into my stomach. Air whooshes out of me in a strangled cry. My phone clatters onto the asphalt, the screen glowing faintly.
“Fucking weakling,” someone spits, and then the blows rain down. My arms are pinned, my body a punching bag. My head snaps back, warm liquid filling my mouth, metallic and bitter. My chest rattles, every breath agony.
And then the blade flashes.
Cold steel slices across my side, sharp and deep, tearing through fabric, through skin. The world tunnels, heat flooding the wound, pain radiating outward in waves.
I choke on the scream but it rips free anyway. My knees buckle. My hands are useless claws, scrabbling against asphalt slick with blood.
Through the blur I see them dragging Sadie tighter into the truck. Her fists slam against the glass, her mouth open in another scream I can’t hear.
“No—” The word is broken, weak. I can’t get enough air.
The phone.
My fingers, numb and trembling, crawl across the ground until I brush the screen. The red light still blinks. Thank God. With what little strength I have, I swipe upward, hit send, attach it to the thread I had open.
My thumb barely makes contact. The whoosh sound is faint, almost imagined.Please. Please let it go through.
The world is hazy. My vision swims, the edges dark.
The truck door slams. Tires squeal. They’re leaving. With her.
I try to lift my head but it drops back against the pavement. The taste of blood thick in my mouth, my chest heaving in shallow, stuttering gasps.
My phone slips from my fingers. The glow fades in and out as if mocking me.
Gus is barking somewhere close, frantic, the sound punching into my skull, but I can’t answer him. My body won’t move.
I watch taillights vanish into smoke.
Then everything goes black.
CHAPTER 39
Gabe
The fire is alive.
It roars around us, a beast with a thousand mouths, and every one of them is hungry. My turnout coat is drenched, my gloves blackened, but I keep moving, shouting orders above the hiss and crack of collapsing timber.
The rookies at my back scramble like startled deer, and I can hear it in their voices—panic.
