“Haven, I swear to Christ,” her father bit out.
She leaned down and kissed Dare’s forehead, and her fingers brushed the end of the grip of his second weapon still holstered under his cut. Oh, thank God. She’d never handled a gun before—her father had always kept her away from them—but she had to try. She had to fight. “I’m just saying good-bye,” she said.
She shifted her legs like she was getting up and wrapped her fingers around the grip. As it pulled free, her eyes met Dare’s. A moment of clarity spilled into those brown depths as he grimaced at the movement at his side.
Crouched on one knee, Haven whirled and pulled the trigger. The first shot caught her father in the shoulder, but the surprise of the hit sent him reeling even as he squeezed off a round that went wide. The second caught him low in the gut. The third, in the chest, and he went down on his back, blood bubbling out of the wounds. Every hit was the result of his low expectations of her, and she’d never been happier to be discounted in her entire life than she was just then.
She kept the weapon pointed at him, even as his hand went slack around his own gun. But he was still holding it.
From down the hallway, she was remotely aware of people screaming, but she couldn’t pay attention to it. She couldn’t pay attention to anything except Dare and her father. Not to the sweat pouring down her hairline and the center of her back. Or the way her heart raced so hard it was difficult to get a breath. Or the way her hand shook around the gun. Her own breathing loud in her ears, she stayed crouched over Dare’s body, gun at the ready, finger still on the trigger. Just in case.
Footsteps came pounding toward her and she whirled. “I’ll shoot!”
The men skidded to a halt in the darkness. “Haven, it’s okay. It’s Maverick.”
She scrabbled to Dare’s other side, putting her body between him and this new threat. “Stay right there or I’ll shoot you,” she said, her voice cracking, wetness on her face.
One of the men stepped slowly into the light, hands in the air. “Haven, it’s Maverick. See? Put the gun down, sweetie.”
Her brain couldn’t process what she was hearing. “Mav . . . Mav . . . Dare . . .”
“I know.” He came a little closer, and then Phoenix and Ike stepped into the light, too. “Put the gun down. Okay?”
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t make her muscles respond. She couldn’t let herself believe the threat was over.
Maverick was within a few feet of her. “I’m gonna take it from you, Haven. Okay? Just real easy,” he said, leaning in and wrapping his big hands around the barrel. He gently tugged it free.
Which was when Haven realized just how bad she was shaking. Her teeth chattered. Her bones hurt. It was suddenly like she was plugged back into her body, because all at once she heard a voice through the loudspeaker giving instructions and saw the colored whirl of emergency vehicle lights in the distance.
Maverick went to his knees beside Dare. “Dare?” he said, leaning over his cousin. But Dare was completely nonresponsive now. Mav pushed his cut open to reveal the full measure of his blood loss. “Get help. Now,” he said, looking up to the other men.
“Oh, God, Dare,” she said, her hand brushing his hair off his sweaty forehead. She curled over until her face touched his. “Don’t leave me. You hear? Don’t you leave me.”
“I need a fucking ambulance at the west concourse hallway,” Phoenix said into his radio. “Right now. It’s Dare. And it’s bad.”
CHAPTER 31
Everything fucking hurt.
His head. His arm. His side.
As consciousness returned, Dare remembered the full horror of what happened. And that’s when he realized that the thing that hurt worse than anything else was his heart. Because he’d failed Haven. Failed and let her father take her away.
On a groan, he forced his eyes open and licked dryly at his lips.
“Dare?” came a deep whisper.
Blinking up at the ceiling, he forced his eyes to the right to find Maverick sitting at his bedside. In a dimly lit hospital room. He tried to form his cousin’s name, but his mouth wouldn’t work.
“Don’t try to talk, man.” Maverick grabbed a white cup off a tray and held the straw to his lips. There was a joke in there somewhere. If Dare felt up to jokes, which he fucking didn’t. But the water was like drinking the finest aged whiskey. Dare couldn’t get enough.
“You look like hell,” Dare rasped.
Maverick barked out a hushed laugh. “You ain’t winning no beauty contests right now either, D.”
Grimacing, Dare went to scrub at his face, but only his right hand would move. Forcing his head to look down his left side, Dare’s chin dropped. Haven was sitting in a chair, her head and shoulders resting on the edge of his bed, her hand holding his. “Haven?” he said in a soft, disbelieving rasp. “Is that . . . I thought . . .”