Page 223 of Wild Embers
I squeeze my phone so tightly my knuckles ache. Javier still hasn't answered a single call. He always answers.
“When exactly did she leave?” Walker questions.
“My dad said she called about an hour ago,” I answer.
Levi’s fist pounds on the back of my seat. “She should’ve been there twenty minutes after she left.”
Pulling into Falling Sky, Walker doesn't bother stopping at the house.
Walker steers off the ranch road and onto the narrow trail leading toward my dad’s place. Tree branches scrape against the sides of the truck, and every passing second feels like another punch to the gut.
I lean forward in my seat, straining to see through the darkness.
“Come on,” I whisper.
My dad’s pickup sits about two miles down, hazard lights blinking against the darkness. He kneels on the ground beside a dark lump, his shoulders rigid. A flashlight lies next to him, shining light across the ground.
Walker slams the truck into park.
I'm out before the tires stop rolling. “Dad!”
My boots sink into the snow as I sprint toward him. The beam of my dad’s flashlight bounces wildly between two bodies.
Javier.
And Bear.
“Pressure,hijo!” he barks before I even reach him. “Take over. I need to check the dog.” His voice is steady only because he's forcing it to be.
I drop to my knees beside Javier, replacing my father's blood-soaked hands with my own. Warm blood immediately seeps through my gloves.
My stomach twists.
There's too much.
Levi crashes down beside us, already digging through the trauma kit he'd grabbed from the truck.
“Keep pressure right there,” he orders me.
Walker is speaking into his radio before his knees even hit the snow. “Jo, I have an adult male with a gunshot wound to the shoulder located approximately two miles south of Falling Sky Ranch. I need EMS asap.”
Static crackles.
“Copy, Walk. Ambulance is en route.”
My father crawls the short distance to Bear.
The pitbull lies on his side, chest rising in shallow, uneven breaths. One eye is swollen nearly shut, and blood mats the fur around his head.
“Pobrecito...” my dad whispers, running a trembling hand over Bear's neck. Bear stirs, trying to sit up. “Easy,mijo. Easy."
Bear lets out the faintest whine.
My dad closes his eyes for half a second, swallowing hard. “He's alive,” he says, though I can't tell whether he's reassuring himself or us.
Levi switches over to Bear. “Head trauma,” he mutters. “Probably cracked ribs, too.”
“I know,” Dad replies quietly, stroking Bear’s head. “I know, good boy.”
