Page 3 of Her Broken Biker
My tote is already on the floor behind the front seat where he threw it, spilled half-open with my badge, lip balm, and a pack of gum peeking out like normal things still belong to me.
I climb into the back seat because they leave me no other choice.
The man with the gun slides in beside me, crowding me against the door. His knee presses too close to mine, and the gun stays low in his right hand, angled toward my thigh.
The man in the hoodie slams my door shut and gets behind the wheel.
In the front passenger seat, a third man is slumped against the door, one hand pressed to his side. His breath comes in harsh, wet pulls.
Blood smell fills the SUV, metallic and heavy.
The wounded man’s fingers are slick and dark where they’re clamped over his abdomen. Blood shines between them and soaks into his shirt.
“How long ago was he shot?” I ask.
The man in the hoodie looks at me in the rearview mirror. His eyes are pale and flat. “Keep your mouth shut.”
“If you want him alive, I need information.”
The man beside me shifts the gun closer. “You always run your mouth?”
Fear pinches my throat. I swallow it down because the wounded man groans, and the sound is bad.
“I need to know how long ago,” I say. “I need to know if he lost consciousness. I need to know if he’s on anything that thins his blood.”
Nobody answers.
The wounded man coughs and curses. His head rolls toward the window.
“Twenty minutes,” the man in the hoodie says at last. “Maybe thirty.”
“Did the bullet exit?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Did he pass out?”
“Once.”
“Then he needs a hospital.”
The man in the hoodie’s eyes cut back to me in the mirror. “You keep saying that like I asked.”
My hands are shaking in my lap. I curl them into fists so they stop drawing attention.
I try to track the turns, but panic makes the road smear. Out of the lot. Right onto the main road. Past the closed gas station. Then trees. Curves. Gravel under the tires.
Lovestone Ridge disappears behind us in pieces.
I look at my reflection in the window.
Round cheeks. Hazel eyes too wide. Freckles across my nose. Chocolate hair slipping from its clip. Twenty-three years old and still looking like someone who gets carded for cold medicine.
My stepfather used to call me Mouse.
He had meant it like a joke. He said it when I moved through the kitchen too quietly, when I sat at family dinners without taking up space, when my mother’s new kids got louder and brighter and easier to love.
“Mouse,” he’d say, smiling.
