“It’s okay,” I crooned as I pressed a rough kiss to her forehead and then her lips. “Shh, Blackbird. It’s okay.”
She dropped her arms and let the gun slip from her fingers, and then she was gripping me with one of her arms as tightly as I was gripping her. Her other hand slipped to her stomach protectively, and the same thoughts and fears from earlier built inside me, but before I could ask, her entire body began shaking so hard. She was going to go into shock.
“You said—you said to do it again. To be sure. You said—”
I cupped her face in one of my hands, pressed my forehead to hers, and tried to speak as gently as possible when all I wanted to do was beg her to forgive me for not being fast enough, to beg her to assure me she was really here in my arms. “He’s gone, Blackbird. He’s gone; it’s okay. You’re okay,” I whispered, then brushed my lips against hers. “You’re okay.”
“Everybody on the ground,” a deep voice boomed from above me, and Briar recoiled from the sound, but I didn’t release her and I didn’t move.
I looked up at the man in the bulletproof vest, and demanded, “Take us to David Criley.”
“I said ever—”
“Take us to David Criley,” I ground out, and when it looked like he would argue, I said low enough that my voice wouldn’t carry, “You’re only here because I made this possible. She’s going into shock. Tell Criley that Trent Cruz is demanding to leave. Now.”
He stared at me with confusion and apprehension, but something registered when I said my name, and he hurried to speak into the mic clipped to him. After a few moments of silence, he jerked his head toward the front of the hall, and I stood with Briar in my arms to follow him—not once looking back at William, or the two men we’d left bleeding on the floor.
As soon as we were outside, my handler came jogging over to us, already talking about whatever was happening inside the hall, but I wasn’t listening, and I didn’t wait for him as I took off for an ambulance at the end of a long line of police and SWAT vehicles.
David caught up to us, his tone warning me that he wasn’t happy. “What happened?”
“He was stabbed,” Briar said immediately.
“I’m fine,” I growled as I caught the EMT’s attention and waited until they were surrounding us. “She needs to be checked out. She’s been blacking out and close to fainting all night. Someone put a needle in her arm about five minutes ago, I don’t know what it was filled with.”
I stepped up into the back of the ambulance and reluctantly placed Briar onto the gurney.
“Lucas, please!” she said frantically and sat up, reaching for me when I stepped back.
I pressed my mouth roughly to hers, leaving it there when I said, “Let them make sure you’re okay. I’m not going anywhere; I’ll be right here.”
Once she released me, I stepped out of the ambulance and watched her. Again, one of her hands fell protectively to her stomach, and I felt anxious and fucking terrified as I waited for something that I wasn’t even positive was happening.
“You were stabbed?” David asked once the EMTs were looking her over.
“Right shoulder. I’ll get it checked later.”
I thought he was going to argue, but after a moment, he sighed and said, “Someone reported as soon as we entered. Were you near there? Do you—?”
“That was us,” I mumbled. Without taking my eyes off Briar, I told him everything that had happened with William at the end.
“He didn’t push it in,” Briar said weakly from where she was now sitting up. “He put the needle in, but he wasn’t able to push whatever was in it into me before you shot him.”
My eyes shut, and the crushing weight I’d been feeling since I’d seen the needle sticking out of her arm vanished. “I saw you fall to the floor,” I whispered, the ache in my voice revealing how gravely it had affected me.
“They were yelling at everyone to get on the floor,” she explained. “I pulled out the needle and dropped to the floor.”
A weighted breath rushed from me, and I opened my eyes to look at my blackbird. “I thought you were—”
“Briar!”
I stilled at the same time my blackbird did, and I watched as her face fell into horror and confusion when the deep voice shouted her name again, this time closer. “Oh my God,” she whispered, and tears immediately fell down her cheeks. “Kyle?”
David and I were pushed out of the way as the man I had come to hate over the last six months rushed into the ambulance and took my entire world up into his arms, despite the protests from the EMTs, and kissed her like a man dying.
Thoughts I hadn’t had in months reared inside me, dark and ugly.
Not the same, I thought on instinct.
But as the girl in front of me clung to her fiancé’s arms instead of pushing him away, I wondered when I would finally comprehend that it was.
I’d always known I would lose her. Always known she would go back to him—choose him over me. And I had no one to blame but myself, because I’d been the one to bring them back together.
I stumbled back a couple steps and then another. My eyes dropped to her flat stomach as wonder and grief slammed into me.
David was saying something, but I wasn’t hearing him. He put his hand on my uninjured shoulder, but I shoved it off as I turned and staggered away.
Chapter 48
Sing
Briar
“Jesus Christ, Briar,” Kyle said when he pulled away. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and his hands were cradling mine so his thumbs could brush my tears away. “Jesus Christ,” he repeated. “I thought you were gone forever.” He pressed a rough kiss to my mouth again, and I tried desperately to hold on to him so I wouldn’t fall.
I felt weak. It felt like my body wouldn’t respond the way I needed it to anymore after what I had done to William. I felt betrayed by my body’s inability to do what I needed it to. I felt so confused . . .
Because Kyle was there, and I couldn’t figure out how or why. But his mouth on my own let me know this was real and not a dream. And his mouth felt comforting, like an old blanket, but it felt wrong. It felt so wrong. And I didn’t have the strength to push him away.
Seeing him after everything that had happened tonight was too much, and I felt so close to breaking.
“I’ve got you; you’re gonna be okay. I’ve got you; you’re gonna be okay. I love you . . . until we’re old and gray, Briar Rose,” he whispered, and I managed to jerk my head away before he could kiss me again.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sounding weak and breathless.
“I’m here to take you home.”
“No,” I said quickly, stopping his mouth just a breath from mine. “No, how are you here.”
“The guy working with the FBI. Luke, or whatever his name is,” Kyle said on a rush. “He contacted me to let me know where you were, and where you were going to be tonight so I could get you out of here.”
Betrayal hit me swift and deep, forcing the air from my lungs, and I looked up to my devil—but he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t anywhere.