Page 2 of Out for Blood
The gate rolled open a second later and I rushed toward the old loading dock that was the entrance to the loft, my breath coming in gasps as I raced up the concrete ramp to the green door.
I’d barely lifted my hand to bang on it when it flew open.
I fell into Bram, who caught me like he always had.
“What the fuck, Cass?” His arms were strong around me. “What’s?— ”
“The Hawks…” This time I couldn’t stop the sobs that broke free from my throat. “They need help.”
2
BRAM
I leanedagainst the wall in the hospital and watched as Maeve tried to comfort Cassie across the waiting room. We were in the emergency room, waiting for the Hawks to be brought in, and I thought about the last time I’d been here, after Cassie’s accident.
I’d been in the hospital more in the last three months than in the last ten years, and I couldn’t help thinking it was because ofthem.
The fucking Hawks.
I’d felt like my own life was on the line after Cassie’s accident. Cassie was part of me, my only remaining blood family, and there hadn’t been a damn thing I could do to help her.
Now something else was on the line, something bigger than my life: Cassie’s happiness.
Because as much as I fucking hated to admit it, the Hawks had made Cassie happy. Why else would she have run all the way from the old paper mill (I still hadn’t figured out what she and the Hawks had been doing there) to get help for the Hawks? Why else would she have crumpled in my arms telling me that they’d been hurt? That they’d taken a hit from a fuckinggrenadeto save her?
And what was a grenade doing in Blackwell Falls? That was some Rafe Maddox shit, and I was pretty sure Rafe Maddox wouldn’t have thrown a grenade at the Hawks.
“This whole thing is fucked,” Poe said, joining me against the wall.
I knew what people saw when they looked at him — knew what they saw when they looked at me: a tattooed giant from the wrong side of the tracks who was up to no good.
But Poe and Remy were like my brothers. Together we ran Blackwell Falls, kept the darkest shit from the people who wanted to pretend it didn’t exist, let them live in happy denial.
Which wasn’t to say we were good guys — I knew what I was, what we all were — but we weren’t what everyone thought we were either.
“I know.”
“What the fuck were they doing at the mill?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Cassie hadn’t been in any condition to give me those kinds of details on the way to the hospital after we’d called the cops, and when I’d started to ask, Maeve had shot me a warning glare. Accompanied by the subtle shake of her head, Maeve’s death stare had made it clear that I’d be in sofa city if I pushed.
I watched Maeve across the room, her arm around Cassie, and felt a surge of love that almost knocked me off my feet. We’d all been fooling around in the living room when Cassie had buzzed the intercom at the gate, and Maeve’s black hair was still loose around her shoulders. She’d thrown on jeans and her well-worn combat boots and the only way she could have looked more beautiful was if she’d been naked.
I could hardly remember what my life had been like before she’d tried to smuggle her fucking gun into the Hunt and changed everything.
That had changed me.
And apparently the Hunt had done the same thing for Cassie.
I’d been furious when Cassie had joined the Hunt and even madder that the Hawks had let her play. They’d known what they were doing, had known I’d be pissed.
And they’d done it anyway.
That had always been my problem with the Hawks: they did what they wanted without a thought for the consequences — to themselves or anyone else.
It was all I’d been able to think about when Cassie had taken her loss by going to live with the Hawks even after I’d told the Hawks it wasn’t happening: that she’d be in the care of three assholes who didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves and their own reckless impulses.
