Page 35 of Priest

Then Deacon groans, and the world narrows again.

“I’ve got you,” I say, reaching him as another shot punches the road near my boot. His helmet is cracked. Blood runs from somewhere under his cut, too much and too fast, soaking into the black leather like the color can hide what it means. I press my hand where the bleeding looks worst, and he jerks under me with a sound I feel more than hear.

His eyes flutter, fighting to fix on me through the blood and road grit. “Priest.”

“Save your breath.” My voice comes out rough as I press harder against the wound and angle my body over him, giving him what cover I can. Training tries to take over, but everything in me wants to tear the road apart with my bare hands.

Deacon’s gaze drags past me, toward the gunfire and the men returning it. “The others?”

“They’re up,” I tell him. “They’re fighting.”

His jaw tightens as if that costs him. Pain rides over his face in a hard wave, but he stays conscious through it, stubborn bastard that he is. He tries to shift, probably looking for a weapon, probably trying to stand because Deacon Hayes would bleed out on principle before he let brothers take fire without him. I plant my forearm across his chest just enough to hold him down.

“Easy,” I growl. “Your job is breathing.”

Gunfire hammers from our side of the road as the others use the overturned truck and the ditch for cover, answering with the controlled violence of men who know how to move inside chaos. The ambush starts to lose its teeth. Shots from the tree line turn scattered, and Nomad’s voice cuts through the comms, sharp and clear.

“Priest, move him. We’ve got cover.”

“Copy.” I glance toward Switch, crouched low near the truck with his gun up and his face pale under the grime. “Cover left.”

Switch shifts without hesitation. Graves fires twice from the front of the truck, measured and cold, while Vise drags fire away from the lane I need. Nobody shouts more than they have to. Nobody wastes breath. Every man out here knows how this works. Get the wounded clear. Keep the line. Make the road cost.

Deacon’s hand clamps around my wrist, slick and weak. “Go help them.”

“I am.” I slide one arm under his shoulders and keep my other hand locked over the bleeding. “By getting you out of the open.”

A breath that might have been a laugh rattles out of him and turns ugly halfway through. His face goes white under the blood and dust, jaw clenched so hard I can hear his teeth grind. Moving him is wrong. Leaving him where bullets can find him is worse.

“I’m sorry, brother,” I mutter, and then I pull.

He screams once, raw and broken, and the sound tears something loose in my chest. I drag him behind the truck’s twisted rear axle, every foot of pavement taking skin off my knuckles, every inch leaving a smear I refuse to look at. Switch appears on my left, firing twice over the truck before dropping beside me.

“I’ve got cover,” he says, voice shaking but hands steady.

“Keep it,” I snap.

He does.

Sirens start somewhere far off, thin at first, then closer. Time goes strange, stretching and snapping, turning seconds into whole lifetimes. Deacon’s breathing turns shallow.

I press harder, my hands slick with his blood. “Stay with me.”

His eyes find mine again. “You look like shit.”

The laugh that breaks out of me has no humor in it. “You always did have bad timing.”

His mouth twitches, then pain drags him under for a second. “Danny?”

I can’t give him that. He knows it anyway.

“Eyes on me,” I say. “You hear me? On me.”

He blinks slow.

“Good.” I lean closer, my forehead almost touching the cracked edge of his helmet. “You don’t get to check out. You don’t get to make me tell the club you bled out on some back road because you were too stubborn to listen.”

His eyes shift, unfocused but there. “You’d make it sound better than that.”