Page 59 of Dreadful

TWENTY-ONE

CRUZ

My knuckles sting like a bitch.

I flex my hand as I step over the asshole sprawled across the hallway, then immediately regret it when the split skin pulls tight.

“Motherfucker.”

That’s going to be annoying tomorrow.

I swipe my palm over my shirt and keep moving, following the bobbing beam of my flashlight toward the kitchen. Somewhere outside, a door slams, followed by Gage yelling something I can't make out.

Good.

He's yelling. That answers one question.

I hit the kitchen as Rafe comes through the back door, guns in both hands. His gaze finds mine at the same time mine drops to the bloodstain on the left side of his shirt.

“Fuck. I’ll get the kit.” I head for the sink, where we keep a first-aid kit. It’s not as big as the one in the garage, but it’s close.

“I’m fine,” he mutters as he stalks through the kitchen.

“Where the fuck are you going?” I call over my shoulder, still crouched at the cabinet with one knee on the tile.

“Bellamy.”

“She’s with Bishop.”

Nothing back. I drag the kit out and drop it onto the island, then grab my flashlight and stand it upright on the counter. The beam hits the ceiling and scatters, filling the kitchen with the kind of weak, grey light that makes everything look worse than it is.

The patio door bangs open.

Gage tracks pool water across the floor in a dark, uneven line. He’s still in his boxer briefs, which would be funny under literally any other circumstances—but there’s blood drying in a streak down one side of his face, more of it smeared from his elbow to his wrist, and a scrape across his shoulder that looks like something dragged him.

“Yours or theirs?”

He pulls his hand down his chest, checking himself with the flat detachment of someone who’s done this before. “Theirs, mostly. You good?”

“Fine. They came through the bathroom.” Something satisfied moves through me when I think about it. “Walked right past me first. Didn’t see me until it was too late.”

He tips his head sideways and a small shower of pool water arcs off his hair and onto the floor. “Left one in the pool.”

“Coco’s going to fucking kill you.”

His eyes drift—not to me, not to anything in particular. Just somewhere past my left shoulder, unfocused. His jaw works once. “Yeah. Probably.”

Bishop comes through the back door next. Split lip. A cut running along the side of his neck in a place that makes my eyes snag and stay—too close to the artery, too close by about half an inch, and something cold moves through my gut just looking at it.

Bellamy is right behind him. Rafe behind her.

The thing that’s been sitting compressed in the center of my chest since the first shot fired begins, slowly, to release.

Then she steps into the light.

I go completely still.

The blood at her temple has run in a thin line down toward her jaw and dried there, and the skin under her left eye is already beginning to rise and darken. Something moves through me that I don’t have a clean word for. Something more visceral than anger and less controlled.