RIOT HOUSE (Crooked Sinners #1) - Callie Hart Page 0,170

out here in the dirt, holding the fucker down until my very last breath, before I allow him to hurt one more person because of me.

“She’s not breathing! She’s not breathing!” Mercy’s piercing cry fills my ears. The next thing I know, Elodie’s standing over us and the knife is in her hands.

“Evil…sick…twisted…” she pants.

I expect that she’ll gut him from stem to sternum, but she doesn’t. She spins the weapon over, holding it by the guard, and brings the heavy metal handle crashing down on Fitz’s head with a sickening crack.

52

ELODIE

The motherfucker’s out cold.

I snatch up the twine that bound my hands, as well as the length Mercy just ripped from Carina’s wrists, and I toss them to Wren. “Make sure he can’t go anywhere before I end the bastard.”

Even after my father killed my mother and trapped me inside that box for days, I never thought I’d have the courage to kill him. Without a shadow of a doubt, I will murder Wesley Fitzpatrick if he so much as stirs in the next few minutes, though.

Carina shivers, her hands shaking as she holds them against her stomach. Mercy thought she wasn’t breathing, but she is. Her gasps for air are shallow and raspy, though, and it doesn’t sound good. She hasn’t said a word, just stares up at me, terrified, with the whites of her eyes showing as her blood flows sluggishly out of the nasty looking wound in her stomach.

“We have to get her back to the academy,” I say.

“We—we shouldn’t move her. We should get help,” Mercy moans.

Wren shakes his head. “She won’t make it. Here. I’ve got her.”

Carina lets out a frightened, pained cry as Wren scoops her into his arms and lifts her from the cold cave floor. We’re moving before I know what’s happening. Fitz is still unconscious when we leave him, hog-tied and lying face down on the ground.

The forest presses down on us, dark and foreboding. Wren doesn’t say a word. He orients himself, panting, and then takes off at a run with Carina in his arms, heading for the academy.

Even carrying Carina, his breath labored and short, he’s much faster than Mercy and me. I don’t feel the tree branches lashing at me. I feel no pain when I stumble and fall. I keep my eyes locked on Wren’s back, and I keep on running.

I lose my shoes.

Relief hits me in a dizzying wave when we reach the road. The soles of my feet tear against the black top as I charge after Wren. He doesn’t falter. Not for a second. We’re still so far away from the academy, though. Too far. I think about the jagged knife wound in Carina’s belly, and I begin to lose hope.

We’re not going to make it. Wren won’t. There just isn’t time.

A car horn cuts through the night, startling me half to death. For a horrible second, I think it’s Fitz, escaped from the cave somehow and burning toward us up the road, but then Pax’s charger screams past us, gunning for Wren. The tires squeal as the car screeches to a halt, and I catch a flash of bright blond hair.

Mercy’s fifty feet behind me, but I hear her shout. “It’s Dash!”

I pause for her to catch up. “How did he know?”

She puffs, shrugging. “I texted him back in the cave. I didn’t know if it went through. I—”

She trails off, fighting for oxygen. It doesn’t really matter how Dash knew. He showed up. I’ve never been so grateful to see the bastard. I’m so exhausted, I can barely keep my feet underneath me when I reach the car. Dash has Carina in his arms and he’s lying her on the back seat, cursing like a madman. His face is grey, his movements frantic.

“Get in the car, Wren!” he yells. “Right fucking now!”

Wren weaves, staggering into the side of the car. “I’m okay. Just take her. Don’t wait for the ambulance. Go!”

I realize just how bad he looks when he drops down on one knee. Oh my god. Holy shit, holy shit, he’s covered in so much blood. There’s a gaping would on his shoulder, and his t-shirt is sliced clean through. His arms have been cut to shreds.

Dashiell slams the rear door closed, shaking his head. He grabs Wren roughly by the arm, dragging him upright. “Get in the fucking car this instant, Jacobi. You’re on death’s door.”

“I’m—right—I’m—ffffine,” he slurs. Then his eyes roll back into his head, and he passes