“For once in your fucking life can you be positive? If not, keep your damn mouth shut. Jesus,” Heaven spurts off unexpectedly. It’s so unlike him to be serious and pissed off. He must be in so much pain.
I grind my teeth together and fall to my hands and knees to crawl along the floor. Searching for the rest of the guys this way is easier, just in case I feel their leg or arm with my hand. The debris is hot, my palm burning to a near excruciating pain, but I keep on. It’s shit like this that makes me want to stop doing these jobs. We have money for the rest of our lives; is it worth risking our lives every time?
Jaxon has something worth living for now. He has Quinn. When we all get back to the Cliff House, we need to have a pow wow because jobs like this shouldn’t be on our radar.
My hand lands on a leg, and I fumble my way up, trying to see if I can figure out who it is by their height, but all of us are well over six-feet, so the attempt is pointless. I grab ahold of the man’s face and shake him.
“I’m alive,” Grayson knocks my hand away. “Jesus, stop shaking me. My side is killing me.” His hand falls to the left side of his ribcage, pressing against the wound that oozes blood.
“Oh, fuck, Grayson.” This isn’t good. There is a piece of steel embedded in the space between his ribs and hip. I hover my hand over the metal, debating if I want to pull it free or not. If I do, it could risk Grayson bleeding out.
“That bad?” He lets out a languid chuckle.
“Worse.” I rub my palm over my face and my head swims. I need to get out of here before I pass out. The smoke and heat are getting to me. “Can you walk?”
“I think so. I need help up.”
I act as his crutch, taking most of this weight as I lift him up, using the strength in my legs.
Grayson grouses with pain and right as he stumbles, Owen is there to catch him. “You look like shit,” Owen teases.
“I look better than you,” Grayson jabs, his eyelids heavy with agony. “Have you found anyone else?” He hisses, reminding me of a snake as we walk through the maze of destruction.
“Heaven is in the van. We still need to find Jaxon,” Owen informs.
“He was next to me. When we flew backward in the air, he was right next to me. He must be close. You have to find him, for Quinn.”
“For us too.” I stop when we get to the door and looked over my shoulder to see another piece of the ceiling collapsing in a useless heap. “Can you handle taking him to the van? I need to look for Jaxon.”
“Yeah, I’ll be back in a minute,” Owen says. The big brute tightens his arm around Grayson and opens the door, sending a fresh wave of oxygen. While my lungs appreciate it, the fire inside sucks the air in and uses it as fertilizer to grow the flames. I suck in a fresh breath before the door shuts and run down the hall, back to the promise of death.
“Jaxon?” I roar, and a loose wire from the wall sparks, swinging through the air with dangerous intent.
Silence.
“Jaxon! You son of a bitch! You better fucking answer me. Quinn will kill me if you die.” I don’t want to think about him being dead; it makes my eyes water and right now, I need to retain all the damn moisture I can.
Jaxon was the first man I met in prison who was innocent of a crime he didn’t commit. We shared stories, and he told me his plan when he got out to seek revenge. Somehow, we ended forming a little group of our own, and men like us flocked to be around others who were just me and Jaxon. It was how our misfit band of brothers formed, and since I had no one else on the outside, these men were who I considered family. That might not mean anything to some people, because how could criminals like us know how to love the way a family should?
Fuck those people.
I don’t hold a fraction of the amount of love I have for my own blood brother as I do for these men. These guys would risk their life for me,