Page 23 of Chill
My body tenses, preparing, and I know this is it. I can’t move. I can’t get away from him when he’s in a lot better shape than me. He’s?—
A shape hurtles into the room, having slammed the door open and causing it to splinter. A snarl meets my ears, and in what seems like an instant, the man is on the ground, the wood spinning away to clatter against the wall.
It takes my brain a few seconds to realize that it’s Ravage who’s on the man, knife flashing in his hand as he rips into him. Blood spatters around the room, and the man’s screams meet my ears just as I slide down the wall to sit on the floor.
I can’t look away.
There’s no horror in me. No regret or sorrow for the man who’d been about to kill me. The only thing I feel is relief, especially when Harrow walks in with a gun in his hand and shoves Ravage off of the man who’s somehow still breathing.
“We could’ve made this easy,” Harrow tells him from behind the ram mask. “You could’ve walked away from this a long time ago.” When Ravage tries to dive for him again, Kieran grabs him and shoves him toward me. The man lifts a hand, wheezing something under his breath, and the gun goes off.
My ears ring loud enough to obscure the man’s pained howls, and it takes a moment for me to register Harrow hadn’t fired a shot that would kill him. Instead, the man clutches his stomach where blood wells from the new gunshot wound, though he’s definitely missing a couple fingers on that hand.
“I really hope that hurts,” I whisper, unable to tear my gaze away. Harrow glances at me from behind his mask, and fires the gun again. This time the man screams and curls around the new bullet wound in his shoulder, sobs wracking through his body.
“Let me finish him,” Ravage snarls, shaking from his spot just in front of me. He glances down at me, and I swear I can feel the hatred, the menace, and the crazed fury behind the skull-like mask he wears. “Please. Let me hurt him.”
Harrow hesitates before stepping back with a nod. “Fine,” he agrees, his voice frigid. “Do what you want.”
Ravage takes the invitation and runs with it. He launches himself forward, stabbing his blade into the man’s leg to drag him across the floor. He screams, but the sound lasts only a few seconds before Ravage buries the blade just under his sternum andripsit downward, opening him up so his insides spill out like they need somewhere to go.
His screams go on for longer than I expect as Ravage sits back on his heels, obviously content to let him suffer. Finally, once the yelling starts to die down, when he can no longer try togather up his insides with mutilated hands like he can stuff them back into his body and the man is just letting out soft, agonized sounds, Harrow steps up to him again, the gun in his hand.
“You deserve worse,” he informs the man, and fires off one last shot.
The silence is instant and deafening. I struggle to my feet once more, unsure when I’d ended up on the ground, and I have to use the wall as a brace the whole way. Everything hurts, and anything I try to say feels like it takes too much effort.
But Ravage is there before I can fall, his arms shaking as he holds me up and shoves his knee between my thighs to brace me. “I’ve got you, Noa,” he murmurs, leaning close. “I’ve got you, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I finally gasp, reaching up to grip his wrists. “I’m sorry,I’m sorry, I—” My breaths shutter out of me and I look over his shoulder at Harrow. “Guess I really should’ve stayed put, huh?”
Harrow shifts, head tilted like he’s going to answer, but my body decides this is it for me. At least for the moment. My knees buckle and I fall into Ravage; thankfully, the blackness comes up to save me from the pain coursing through my body and the fear and desperation still making me want to vomit.
10
The dull achein my head is unfortunately the first thing I notice when I wake up. Though it’s less horrific than I expected, and other than that and some pain in just about every part of my body, I feel pretty okay.
At least I’m notdead.
“Hey princess.” Val’s voice is soft, and I feel him shift behind me so my body can rest more comfortably against his and I’m mostly sitting up. “Can you wake up for me? You’ve been asleep for a while now.” His voice is husky and rough, and it makes me wonder when the last time he slept was.
“Fuck.” I sigh, tilting my head back against his shoulder. “Are you sure Ihaveto? Like, super sure?”
He chuckles. “Well, given the way Kier is glaring you down from across the room, I actually wouldn’t blame you for choosing to go back to sleep instead,” he admits. “But I’d like to check you out. I’m pretty convinced you aren’t concussed, and you didn’t need stitches, but I still worry.”
“Did you go to online medical school while I was asleep?” I ask, forcing my eyes open. My head hurts a little more as I stare at the ceiling, and it clicks that we’re definitely no longer in the creepy, dilapidated motel from before.
“In a past life, I was an EMT. Lucky for you,” Val informs me. “There we go. Sit up, Noa. Just a little for me.” I do what he says, letting him shift me until I’m sitting mostly vertical on my own with only my shoulders braced against his chest and his thighs on either side of me.
The first thing I see, however, when I tilt my head down, is Kieran. He is, in fact, glaring at me from the desk chair across the room, though my eyes leave his to go to the curtained off balcony in the room. “This is nice,” I admit. “Much nicer than?—”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Kieran cuts me off, his voice dangerously soft. I curl my legs to my chest as much as I can, wincing at the ache still bone-deep in my body. “We told you tostay. I told you?—”
“You were gone for a long time,” I retort finally. “All I did was walk down the hallway, Kieran.” I love the way his name sounds on my tongue, but right now, all I can feel is a wave of defensiveness. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Well, I did. But for the sake of my pride, I’m refusing to admit it.
He’s up in an instant, and I flinch as he strides to the bed and crawls onto it. Val is no help, and only rests his chin gently on my shoulder while he watches with interest. “Don’t open any of her injuries,” he orders with a sigh. “I don’t want to go through another bag of medical supplies.”
