Page 274 of Cross Checked
The second time, his voice changed.
That was how I knew it was bad.
Not the blood. Not the way my chest wouldn’t pull right. Not the cold spreading beneath my skin, slow and steady and wrong. Ryan Decker did not panic. Ryan looked at chaos the way most people looked at weather, like it was irritating but manageable. If Ryan’s voice broke around my name, I was not in the “lost the fight but won the war” category.
I was in the “oh fuck” category.
He came around the corner at a run and stopped so hard his shiny black dress shoes skidded against the concrete.
I watched his face take in the hallway in pieces.
For half a second, every terrible thing in the world entered Ryan’s body at once. I saw it happen. Saw the color drain from his face, saw his eyes go too wide, saw his mouth part like whatever he found here had knocked the air out of him too.
Then it vanished.
He locked down so fast I almost missed the fear.
Almost.
Ryan dropped beside me hard enough that I heard the impact as his knees hit the concrete floor, and his hands were already moving.
“Fuck—” He sounded panicked. “Cade. Hey… stay with me.”
I tried to tell him I was staying exactly where I was because mobility seemed wildly optimistic at this point, but my mouth didn’t cooperate.
Ryan pressed both hands against my side, and pain burned white through the entire left half of my body.
My back arched off the floor, and a sound came out of me I didn’t recognize. Not a groan. Not a shout. Something ripped loose and ugly, swallowed by the corridor before I had enough air to be embarrassed by it.
“I know,” he snapped, voice tight but controlled. Too controlled. Like he was holding the whole thing together with his teeth. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve gotta put pressure on it.”
“Pip…?” I forced out.
It barely sounded like her name. Ryan’s eyes flicked to mine, fierce and immediate. “She’s outside. She’s safe, Cap.”
Safe.
That should be enough.
It wasn’t, because I was apparently a selfish bastard even while bleeding out. I didn’t just want her safe. I wanted to see her safe. Wanted to look at her face and make sure Luke had not somehow reached beyond death and put fear back in her eyes.
I tried to breathe deeper, but I couldn’t. The air caught halfway and shredded on the way back out. Panic tried to crawl up my throat, not for me, never for me, but because outside was too far away. Outside was another world. Outside was Bliss wrapped in noise and family and postgame chaos while I was on the floor with Ryan’s hands in my blood and Luke dead by my hand.
“Don’t let her—”
“I won’t.” Ryan’s voice cut through the haze, hard and absolute.
My fingers grabbed weakly at his sleeve. “Knife.”
“I see it.”
“He—”
“Stop talking.” Ryan yanked his phone from his pocket with one bloody hand, hit three numbers, and put it on speaker without ever taking pressure off me. “You’re wasting air.”
That was probably supposed to be practical, but he sounded terrified.
The call connected.
