Page 112 of The Vows We Keep
I hand my gun to her, and she takes it instead of reaching for her own. She rises to her knees and points it at Perrito. “I killed Felipe. Mateo is dead. Your line is gone, you worthless sack of shit. This is for Eduardo ‘Pensa’ Flores.”
She fires until all the bullets are gone.
When she’s done, her breaths become sobs. Deep, painful tears. The kind that came when she sat on my stairs. She falls back into me, and I hold her tightly, wishing I could carry all this for her. I kiss the top of her head and stroke her hair.
“I’ve never been so certain I was going to die,” she says as her body shakes.
“You’re safe, love. I promise. It’s all over.”
Finally, the only sounds are that of my brothers trying to regain their breath after the fight. Bates is drenched in blood, knives in both hands as he looks around. Crimson seeps into the snow. The scent of gasoline lingers in the air from damage to bikes. Switch is tying a belt around Vex’s leg to stop the flow of blood.
“We need to get Vex to a hospital. I can’t fix this kind of internal bleeding,” he says.
“Wrinkle should be here any minute with the van,” King says. “Vex sent him the precise location when we stopped back there. How’s your girl?”
Catalina wipes her eyes and looks up at King. “I’m good.”
King crouches in front of her. “You did good, Cat. But your man’s in a world of hurt, and we need to get you off him. And you need to get your shoulder checked.”
Cat scrambles out of my lap. With the blood coloring the snow next to my leg, I either shredded my knee in the skid, have a broken bone that pushed through the skin, or got shot.
As I acknowledge that, the pain comes flooding back into my consciousness with such ferocity, I lean to one side and puke in the snow.
“Dios, Colton.”
I lie down as everything in the world has suddenly gone woozy as shit. Catalina’s palm presses on my chest. And I hear the whispered words that tumble from her lips as she worries about me. And despite the trippy feeling of losing my battle with consciousness, I know I’d do it all over again for her.
Thirty-six hours later, with a cast the full length of my leg that’ll prevent me from riding while I recover, I’m sitting in a temporary wheelchair Switch got me. Catalina wheels me into my home, and Bates and King follow her in with my shit from the hospital. After Switch confirmed in the van that I hadn’t been shot, I was dropped off at the hospital under the guise of a bike accident. Which wasn’t totally untrue.
Cat’s bullet wound was a deep graze. We pretended she was on the back of my bike, and both of us looked at the doctor blankly when he suggested it looked more like a bullet wound. Eleven stitches over her bicep sorted her out.
Vex is alive, but it was touch and go. He’s had surgery, and most of the blood in his body has been replaced at this point. He’ll be okay, but he’s got a long road ahead.
Clutch has confirmed my bike is irreparable, and I’ll need to get a new one. Catalina joked that I could ride around on the back of hers when I recover.
Bates found it funny.
I found it funnier when I punched him.
Sure, I was still half drugged up from the surgery, and it didn’t hurt him worth a jot, but it made me feel better.
“How are you doing there, champ?” King asks when we’re all in the house.
“Like I was run over,” I admit. “All of me hurts.”
“That’s what you get for being a hero,” Bates says as he helps me transfer from the wheelchair to the sofa with the chaise on the end.
Catalina grins. “I wish we could replay the moment you started to skid. It happened too fast for me to process in real time.”
“Won’t be doing it again, if that’s what you were thinking,” I grumble. “So don’t be getting held hostage again.”
King laughs as he places our stuff by the stairs. “Not for a while at least.”
Spark and Iris step in through the open door. We’re neighbors of a sort, living minutes apart. “We brought you dinner,” Spark says.
Iris places a container down on the hall table. “Thought it might be easier than trying to figure out what to cook tonight.”
“Thank you so much,” Catalina says.
