Page 60 of Rebel
A door slams open ahead, and a shooter fills it, eyes flat. Raven doesn’t break stride. Two shots, center mass, the man folds like he was waiting for permission. French boots the doorstop, clears the path with a grin that belongs on a wanted poster.
We burst into the night. The cold hits my face like absolution and does nothing to clean the blood on my hands.
Iris fishtails the van to a stop so hard that the rear bumps the curb. “Romance later!” she yells. “Bodies now!”
French and Raven haul the back doors open. We shove Carter inside, and I climb after him, never letting go. The doors slam shut. Sloane dives into the passenger seat, hair damp with sweat, eyes bright with feral joy.
Iris guns it.
Through the rear window, for one split second, I see Bones on the mezzanine railing, black againstgold, firing one last controlled burst before he steps back into shadow and the night swallows him.
Then we’re gone, and the gala shrinks behind us. The music is still playing for people who refuse to hear it. Carter’s head lolls against the van wall. His skin is too pale. I press harder. He hisses.
“Breathe,” I tell him.
“You first,” he says, because he’s an idiot or a saint.
French leans over the seat, hands steady, voice not. “Next time you two go dancing, I’m selling tickets.”
I laugh, a shocked, broken thing that feels like coming home to the wrong address. “Put it on my tab.”
Divine:“Ten minutes to the clubhouse. Hold pressure. And Rebel?”
“What?”
“You did good.”
I look down at Carter’s blood on my silk and decide I’ll believe her later. Right now, I count the beats in his pulse and refuse to let any of them stop.
By the time we reach the clubhouse, the night is turning into day, but everything still smells like gunpowder and fear. The garage doors roll up, and the sound of engines dies in a heartbeat.
Inside, the lights burn a low amber, steady, waiting.
Allura meets us first, her sleeves shoved to her elbows, surgical gloves already snapping on. “Put him here.”
We drop Carter on the long table the girls built out of steel and oak. He grunts but doesn’t fight. French strips off his ruined tux jacket, Raven cuts the sleeve, and Divinekills the music because even background noise feels wrong.
Allura leans over him, voice calm as gospel. “Through-and-through, upper shoulder. Missed the artery. He’ll live if everyone stops hovering.”
I can’t move. My hands are slick with red. His blood, not mine. My throat closes around everything I should’ve said before tonight.
French’s hand lands on my shoulder. “He’s fine, sugar. You, though, you look like someone the night forgot to bury.”
“I told him not to get hit,” I say.
French snorts softly. “Yeah, that always works.”
Across the room, Sloane and Iris dump gear, muttering about gun calibers and exit routes. Calypso throws open a window, and smoke and fog push in. Raven leans against the wall, cleaning her pistol with the kind of focus that’s really prayer in disguise.
Allura threads a needle, fast and sure. Carter doesn’t flinch. “Keep talking,” she tells me. “Distract him. Distract yourself.”
So I do.
“You ruined another suit,” I say.
“Wasn’t mine.” His voice is gravelly.
“You’re bleeding on my table.”
