Page 58 of Shadow Secrets
“That was last week. and it’s only the fourteenth.”
“Oh.” She blinked up at him. His face kept doubling—two Sebastians where there should only be one. “Okay. So my timing’s a little off.”
“What’s my name?”
She snorted. “Sebastian.”
He was still pressing hard on her shoulder. “What’s my last name?”
She frowned. What was his last name? Her brain chased it around but couldn’t quite latch onto it.
A bang on the front door. “I’ll be right back,” Sebastian said.
He was gone only an instant.
“What the hell,” a big man with a drawn gun said.
She should know his name, too, and yet…and yet…
“Hostile down.” Sebastian was pushing on the flannel shirt again. “Sutton’s hit. Shoulder graze, probable concussion. I already called for an ambulance.”
“Claire’s four minutes out. Mack’s on the front.”
Sebastian nodded. “Nobody gets in or out of this block that I don’t personally clear.”
“Copy.” The man’s face appeared above her, filling her field of vision. She saw two of him, too. His eyes were kind. “Hey, darlin’.”
Grizzly, like the bear. She almost smiled. “Hi, Grizzly.”
“You stayin’ awake for me?”
“Yes.”
“Good girl. You keep workin’ on it.” He glanced at Sebastian. “Hospital’s across town. Could take the ambulance ten minutes or more to get here.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. Sebastian patted her cheek, and she tried to open them. To tell him not to do that.
Sebastian lifted her. “Can’t wait that long.”
“I’ll drive,” the grizzly man whose name she should know said.
The movement of being swept up sent a bolt of pain through her shoulder and another through her head. The room tilted so hard she lost the ceiling entirely. Sebastian’s arm was under her knees. His other was around her back, supporting her head against his shoulder.
He was moving fast—she could feel it in the rhythm of his stride—and she could hear Grizzly clearing a path in front of him, the boots of other men she couldn’t see.
The cold outside chilled her face. The sky was very blue and much too bright. The aspens were turning. She wanted to paint them more like characters, reaching for a princess…
The edges of the world were starting to soften.
“Stay with me, Ink.” Sebastian’s strained voice was right against her ear. “Do you hear me? Open your eyes. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
She tried. She really tried. She made herself count his footsteps. One, two, three, four. The street. Five, six, seven. A vehicle door opened. She heard the thump of her own heartbeat?—
“Sutton.”
She wanted to answer.
Sebastian’s face was the last thing she saw. Blue eyes, a cut on his cheekbone from the window glass, his mouth moving. He was speaking, but she couldn’t parse the words anymore. The sounds had lost their edges.
