Knife still in my hand, I headed toward Santos, who was backing toward the doors.
Santos fired off a couple more shots. At first, I thought he was targeting the partygoers huddled in the middle of the lobby, but his aim was too wide for that, and the bullets harmlessly punched into the floor. But the shots made everyone panic, rise to their feet, and stampede toward the back of the lobby, running over and even knocking one another down as they tried to scramble to safety behind the tellers’ counter.
I stormed after Santos but got caught in the crush of people going the other way. Every time I took a step forward, someone bumped into me and shoved me back.
“Move! Move! Move!” I yelled, but the continued screams drowned out my words.
Santos took advantage of the chaos. He made it all the way over to the doors before stopping and raising his gun again. I didn’t care if the bastard shot me, but I was shoving other people out of the way, hoping that I could at least get everyone else out of his line of fire.
But Santos had other ideas. He whipped his gun to my right, aiming it at someone else. I looked over my shoulder, my blood freezing in my veins as I realized whom he was targeting.
Finn.
“Gin! Gin!” Finn shouted. “I’m coming!”
Gun in hand, he was also fighting his way through the crowd, trying to come help me. Bria and Owen were doing the same thing, but Finn was the closest, about ten feet behind me. He pushed one of the waiters out of his way and skidded to a stop, realizing that Santos was aiming at him. Finn snapped up his own gun, but he wasn’t going to get the other man first.
Santos shot me a wicked grin, then focused on Finn again, his finger curling back on the trigger. He realized that shooting Finn would hurt me more than if I were wounded myself.
I raced in Finn’s direction, but I was no superhero, and I wasn’t even close to being faster than a speeding bullet. My foster brother was going to die, and it was all my fault.
“Finn!” I screamed. “Finn!”
Too late.
Santos pulled the trigger.
7
The shot rang out, that one sharp, single crack seeming louder than all the previous ones put together.
All the while, I could hear myself screaming—Bria too—but it was like I was underwater, and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Finn’s eyes widening, his mouth falling open, his entire body tensing, waiting for the bullet to tear through his chest.
But it never happened.
At the last instant, Deirdre shoved Finn out of the way, making him fall to the floor. The bullet hit her instead, and she screamed and spun around before stumbling into a cluster of chairs. She bounced off a chair and slid down, landing on her ass and clutching her left arm, her face white with shock. Given her scarlet dress, I couldn’t tell how badly she might be injured.
And I didn’t care. Finn was okay.
Santos’s lips moved, but I couldn’t hear the curses he was spouting. He turned tail, pushed through the front doors, and disappeared.
I kicked off my black stilettos, palmed a second knife, and sprinted after him. I wanted to end this now, before Santos escaped, holed up somewhere, and started plotting his revenge against me. Not only that, but I wanted to know if Santos had decided to rob the bank on his own or if someone had hired him to do it. And since the bastard had tried to shoot Finn, I was going to carve the answers out of him one slow slice at a time.
Bria and Owen started to follow me, but I stabbed one of my knives toward Finn, who was still sprawled across the floor. He must have taken a harder tumble than I’d thought.
“Stay with him!” I yelled.
Not only because Finn was injured but also because I didn’t want to leave him alone with Deirdre—not even for a minute.
I shoved a few more screaming people out of my way, rammed my shoulder into the door, and barreled down the stairs, which were still covered with that red carpet—
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Santos fired at me, hanging out the front passenger window of a black van idling at the curb. But I was still holding on to my Stone magic, so the bullets bounced off my body instead of punching through my chest. Still, the blows made me stagger back, and it took me a few seconds to shake off the hard, stinging impacts and dart forward again.
Santos cursed and started to reload, but whoever was driving the van had had enough, especially with the growing whoop-whoop-whoop of police sirens in the distance. The getaway driver gunned the engine and peeled away from the curb, tires smoking.