Page 197 of Split You Open

“Who the fuck are you?” Dixie demands, pulling out his own gun as he realizes all the men he hired to protect him are dead.

I don’t know if Wes ever intended to answer or not. But it doesn’t matter because a shot rings out—capturing all our attention.

For four very long seconds, nothing happens.

Turns out, that’s because the bullet had quite some distance to travel. It enters into one side of Dixie’s temple and exits the other side. His eyes widen in surprise, his jaw goes slack. Beneath him, Dixie’s legs give out and he crumbles to the ground.

Gone.

The fucking bastard who’d thrown everything at Blair and Anchor to kill them is finally fucking dead.

No one takes the time to celebrate.

Nor do they ask who made that shot—we all know it could’ve only been one person. While we might’ve told him to stay home, Anchor showed up for his daughter and made sure to put an end to the threat on her life.

The others converge on me at once.

“Christ! Get the tape off her mouth!” Wes says, already moving to do so. He pulls at a frayed end and unwraps it around her head. Blair doesn’t stir.

Rhett turns sheet white as he pulls out his bloody knife and slices through the ropes around her wrists and ankles. I don’t miss the way his hands tremble.

“She’s not dead, is she?” Santi asks, his voice strained.

I brush past him and everyone else. “No, but we need to get moving now. There’s oxygen and blood bags down in the basement back at the cabin that we’ll need ASAP.”

Breaking out into a jog, I hurry down the driveway—no longer needing to worry about if there are any lingering threats.

The others have taken care of the danger.

Now, together, we’ll have to take care of Blair.

Forty-One

Wesley

“Get her clothes off!” I bark as Ledger carries Blair down into the basement.

Blair hasn’t moved.

Hasn’t opened her eyes.

Her breathing is shallow and uneven.

And her pulse—the one I kept my finger on the entire ride back to the cabin—is nearly nonexistent. Terror makes my movements jerky as I force myself to move and focus on an immediate task.

Rather than follow Ledger, Santi, and Rhett downstairs, I head toward the kitchen sink and turn it onto its hottest setting.

One of us needs to be sanitized before cleaning up Blair.

The water burns my hands as I scrub them clean with soap. When I’m done, I fill a large bowl up with hot water and grab a clean dish rag from under the sink. I start to step away but then decide to grab a few more rags.

We’re going to need them.

I hurry down the hall and then down the stairs into the basement. Without stopping I head into the back room.

Blair’s laid out on the table. Santi is in the process of cutting off her shirt while Ledger is opening the first aid kit and laying everything out.

“Stop touching everything,” I snap, shouldering Ledger out of the way. “You’re contaminating it. Go grab whatever else we’ll need and let me handle this.”