Page 97 of Twisted Steel

I turn to face him, and for once, he doesn’t tell me to keep my head.Maybe he knows it’s too late.

Raven reaches toward the stretcher and touches the bandage at Tyler’s thigh.“She kept pressure after the crash.”

I see it now.The tied bandage.The brace.The blood pattern.Harper did her job while men came to take her.

“She saved him,” I say, and Savage looks at me.“She kept pressure on him after the crash.”My voice is rough.“She saved him before they pulled her out.”

Of course she did.Even terrified.Even hurt.She saved the living.

I step out of the ambulance.“Get Tyler to County,” Savage orders Fury.“Now.”

Raven follows me out, her eyes on the drag marks leading toward the tire tracks.“She fought them.”

“She would,” I mutter.

“There’s more blood near the door.”

I look down at the second trail—it’s not enough to be fatal, just enough to tell me someone put hands on her.The world narrows to that blood.Harper’s blood.My medic’s blood.

No, not mine.

But every part of me still answers like something sacred has been touched.

Saint crouches near the asphalt outside, flashlight sweeping over tire marks.“Three vehicles.One van, two bikes.They headed north.”

“Reaper,” I say.

“That would be my most likely guess.”

“No,” I correct, standing with Harper’s broken shear in my fist.“Definitely.”

Tyler groans weakly, and that sound is the only reason I don’t tear the night apart in every direction at once.I climb back into the ambulance and check his pulse like Harper would.Fast and weak, but alive.

Raven watches me.

“What?”I snap.

“Nothing.”

“You’re looking.”

“Yes.”Her gaze drops to my hand on Tyler’s pulse.“She got under your skin deeper than you think.”

“She’s gone.”

“Then go get her.”

Savage turns from the wreck, already moving.“Saint?”

Saint rises, phone to his ear.“I’ve got a plate hit.Near the industrial sector north around the old rail spur.It’s the same area as the trace.”

Reaper’s stage.

He took the medic, now he thinks he has me.

Savage faces me.“He wants you coming blind.”

I look at the blood on the asphalt, at the broken shear in my hand, at the place Harper should be.