Page 83 of Violent Skies

“Fuck!” I scream, palming the gun and panicking as I rip free of the harness. I jolt out of the driver’s side door, my eyes looking for the driver only to find him groaning as he tries to crawl across the road.

“Cress.” Riggs sounds weak, and watery. That’s bad. “Cress!” he says again as I walk toward the driver that shot him. “Hey,” he calls out, trying to get up but he can’t. Blood seeps through his fingertips as he grips his right shoulder and his hair is plastered to his sweaty forehead as his body works to keep him alive.

I have to finish this. I can’t— I can’t let them go. We can’t. It doesn’t work that way. Both Birdie and Riggs have said as much. It has to end here. Tears fill my eyes as I kick over the driver. He hits the gravel with a thud as he groans, feeling around for his weapon but it’s ten feet away on the road on the other side of me and him.

“Baby,” Riggs pleads without strength, and I can hear his boots in the gravel as he tries to stand again.

I ignore him and click the safety off of the gun, only knowing how to do it because Rafe taught me how when Riggs wasn’t looking. I put my boot to his wrist as he tries to swat at my ankles and aim the gun at his chest, knowing exactly where to hit but not exactly knowing how I’m going to pull the trigger. My brain is so foggy. This isn’t how my life was supposed to go. I just wanted to help people.

I close my eyes, breathing in, reminding myself that I’m helping the most important people in my life by doing this. There’s no other option.

My finger twitches on the trigger but a warm hand wraps around mine and the smell of copper and motor oil fills my nose as Riggs takes the gun from me.

“Cover your ears,” he says, as if I hadn’t just listened to bullets crack across my windshield, but before I can argue, I slap my hands to my ears as the shot rings out and his knees give way. I turn into him, wrapping my arms around him, but he’s all dead weight and the blood is making him slippery. He falls to the ground in a puddle of blood with me half beneath him.

“I need you to stay awake,” I grunt, slipping out to search the body, as I look over my shoulder at the only car still running. I stumble to my feet, Riggs reaching for me as I kick through the gravel and start to run. I stick my head inside the car, spotting the keys and darting back to Riggs. “Put pressure on your shoulder, this is going to hurt,” I say, alongside a stream of quiet apologies as I hook my arms under his and start to drag him backward toward the passenger door.

I leave him for a split second, angling myself to the door to swing it open and haul him up toward my chest, begging him to find his footing just for a second. His bloody hand slaps against the door frame as I get him up, a dark, painful, strangled growl of pain leaves his throat as he rolls into the passenger seat.

“You need—” his breathing is labored. “—to remove their helmets. We need—”

“Pictures, right…” I nod, finding my focus but not my urge to move. He looks too weak, he’s losing too much blood.

“Cress—” he pants. “—Now…”

I nod, running back to the drivers. The first helmet pops off with ease to expose a faceI’ve never seen in my life. I commit his nasty features to memory as I fumble with bloody hands to get my phone open. The next is harder. The car still balances on the edge and the body is mangled into the metal. One wrong move and they’re both gone. I push up to my toes, pulling hard, and it slides off.

It’s one of the assholes from the house that night.

“Bird will be so sad she missed this,” I laugh. It’s defeated and exhausted, but it tumbles from me in the most violent of ways as I take another photo. The sight of mangled skin and blood turns my stomach bubbly in the worst sort of way. The sounds of tires on gravel make me whip my head around and I can barely hear Riggs hollering over the sound as I sprint back to the car. He closes his door with a hiss and I jump into the driver's seat, maneuvering it on the road just in time for the headlights of an unrecognizable car to come over the hill.

“Cress, we gotta go—” Riggs whispers. “Right now, drive. Now—”

I floor the pedal and whip around the oncoming car as it skids to a stop, the window comes down and two shots are fired, confirming the need to get the hell out of dodge. My brain recalls the curves going up, rewinding it back and playing it in order as I push us down through the darkness back to the city. The downtown lights look blurred and small from this far away, and just when I think that it might have been enough the speed, the precision, I hear the sound of the car behind us. Too close, too fast.

I exhale, hitting the bottom of the hill with more speed than I can handle and the car burns out to the left before I get it back into control.

“Breathe, Cress—” he huffs. I look over at him and there’s so much blood. Too much. I know exactly how much more he can lose, and it’s not enough to get back to safety. I can’t do this. He’s going to die in that seat and there’s nothing I can fucking do about it. “Take a right—” he gasps as I jolt at the next turn. I’m not as smooth as Birdie, not as fast as Rafe, or as smart as Murphy. I’m not who he needs and it’s going to get us both killed. “Two blocks—left—there’s an alley—” His breathing continues to get worse. “It runs all the way to v—”

“Stop talking and hold that!” I snap at him.

“Runs to Verrado—” he grunts when he finds his voice. “Take it to the ten.”

“To the ten?” I visualise, counting the seconds and hitting the alley right where he says it’s going to be. “I don’t think I can lose them,” I cry, my fingers growing itchy as his blood dries to my skin.

“You can—” he encourages, “just keep going. Watch the traffic, keep your eyes between the road and the mirror—”

“Okay, okay…” I do as he says, whipping through the alley but the lights are still back there, and until I lose them, I can’t take him to the garage. “I know I said to shut up but keep talking to me…”

“I’m okay, Cress, just—” he hisses as I hit a hole. “Faster. Don’t kill us.” He rolls his head to the side, his blue eyes losing their brilliant color as he smiles at me.

“Not funny,” I sob and he chuckles weakly.

“Something’s wrong.” I sit at what’s supposed to be the finish line, straddling my bike but it’s been too long. “Jake!” I call out to him, and he whips his blond head to look at me with a nod before sauntering over.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“How long was the route?” I ask, knowing the answer.