Page 10 of Grim

Not on his watch. Not again.

He lifted Brick into the truck, bracing him carefully as Havoc slammed the door and peeled out of the lot. Grim didn’t waste a second. He swung onto his bike, engine roaring to life as the rest of the Saints fell in behind him. Gravel spit under their tires as they tore out of the parking lot, forming a tight escort around Havoc’s truck.

They tore down the back roads in tight formation, engines echoing through the dark as the miles blurred beneath them.

The ER entrance glowed ahead, harsh fluorescent light spilling onto wet pavement. Nurses rushed out with gurneys, shouting orders, moving with the controlled chaos Grim had seen too many times in too many places.

He carried Brick inside, boots thudding against the tile.

“GSW to the abdomen,” someone called. “BP dropping…”

“Over here!” a woman’s voice cut through the noise. “Put him here!”

Grim turned toward the sound. And saw her.

She stood at the center of the storm in navy scrubs, dark hair twisted into a messy bun, a pen tucked behind one ear. Her skin was warm brown, eyes sharp and steady as she assessed the room. She moved like she’d done this a thousand times, steady and sure.

“Vitals?” she snapped, already pulling on gloves.

“Fast and weak,” a nurse answered.

“Okay.” She leaned over Brick. “Hey, you’re okay. I’ve got you.”

Her voice was soft, but it cut through the panic like a scalpel.

Grim laid the prospect on the bed she’d indicated. Blood spread across the sheets in a dark bloom.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Brick,” Grim said.

She glanced up. “His real name.”

Grim stared back. “Brick.”

Her mouth tightened, but she didn’t argue. She pressed gauze to the wound, hands steady.

Brick groaned, fingers twitching.

“You’re alright,” she murmured, voice dropping. “Easy… easy.” Then, under her breath, barely audible, “Ándale…” The word was soft, instinctive, something she didn’t seem aware she’d said.

Grim didn’t understand the word. But he understood the tone. Soft. Steady. Warm. It didn’t belong in a room full of blood and fear. It didn’t belong anywhere near him.

“Sir?” another nurse said, shoving a clipboard toward him. “We need your information. Name, contact, relation to the patient.”

Grim barely glanced at it. “He’s with us.”

“We still need your name.”

He almost said Grim. Almost. But the hospital didn’t care about road names.

“Maddox Hale,” he muttered. The nurse scribbled it down and moved away.

The woman in scrubs, Sophia if he’d heard right, reached for more gauze. She pressed it firmly to Brick’s wound as the trauma team rushed in.

“We’re taking him to surgery,” someone called.

“Vitals trending down, pressure dressing in place, two large-bore IVs, responsive to pain,” she said, stepping back immediately, letting the trauma team take over. The team wheeled Brick toward the OR doors, voices overlapping as they moved.