"Don't you think I know that, damn it?" Cliff yelled back at him.
They were in a bind, but Atreides thought Selena would reappear next to him. She didn't. What the hell had happened to her? He was worried that she had been hit. That she was dead even. He couldn't go into the room without her invitation and he didn't want Rosa to subject herself to more gunfire. Daniel was texting on his phone, supposedly for backup.
Atreides called to Colt and Renault to join them at the apartment complex. He had thought there were other hunter rogues out there, so he hadn't called to them to come before this. But he needed to get in the room.
"Where's my sister?" Rosa asked, expecting the same thing as Atreides, for her to suddenly appear next to them.
"I'm in here," Selena said telepathically to Atreides. "I've been hit."
Chapter 19
Selena would kill the men. Cliff and Perry Rochester had shot her because she'd moved in front of her sister and Atreides, to invite him in and to protect her sister. She'd never expected the men to be armed with guns. It was unheard of in the history of their kind.
She was in pain, bleeding, but the bullet wounds hadn’t hit fatal spots. Thankfully, she managed to transport into one of the bedrooms where the men weren't at and they must not have realized it. She was afraid to invite Atreides in. The hunters needed to do this, but she also didn't want anyone else to get shot. Then she thought of her brother. What if Daniel had been hit also? And Eliza and Brittany? She invited Atreides in. "Don't let my sister enter the apartment."
"Are you badly hurt?" Atreides asked Selena.
"Yes. I'm in a back bedroom, first one on the left down the hall. Cliff and Perry sound like they're in the kitchen."
"I'm on my way."
"Don't get yourself killed. I would never forgive you."
Then he was in the bedroom, appearing next to her, and she was lying on the floor, holding her wounds. "Hell, Selena," he whispered. "I've got to get you out of here."
"No way. We've got to end this now. Not only for the vampiresses they’ve murdered but for the future ones if we don't stop them. No telling where they'll end up."
"We've got hunter reinforcements coming. Let me take you out of here." Atreides sounded desperate to move her and get help for her.
"No."
"You can't fight like this."
"Watch me. I'm healing." Not instantaneously, but she could do this. "Just give me a few minutes."
"We've got to make a break for it. We killed Selena. There are two others out there, her sister, and some other guy I didn't recognize," Cliff said.
"Yeah, the other guys want to leave too. We're hemmed in here. If they call for reinforcements, we're dead," Perry said.
"Okay, they didn't expect us to be using guns so they can't win against us. Let's do this," Cliff said.
"I still can't raise Lonnie."
"He may be dead."
Selena told the other huntresses turned to go after the men in the other room.
"Will do," Eliza said.
Selena heard Cliff and his friend running out of the kitchen and she suddenly appeared before them and thrust her sword into Cliff's heart, if he'd had one. His expression was one of shock and he dropped his gun. She couldn't pull her sword out of Cliff’s body fast enough to kill Perry.
But Atreides was there for her, taking out the other hunter, "For all the vampiresses you murdered and for attempting to kill Selena."
The men were still not dead, but they looked up at them in shock as Rosa ran into the room. She yanked Atreides’s sword out of Perry’s chest, handed it to Atreides who sheathed his sword, and Rosa shoved her sword into the hunter. "For being a rogue and giving hunters a bad name." Then she saw Selena barely standing, but Atreides grabbed her up before she collapsed. She needed a vacation after this.
Her sister retrieved her sword and they headed to the other apartment as hunters slammed the fire escape door open and rushed down the hall to the apartment where gunshots were being fired again.
"Take care of Selena. Harry Canton and Lonnie Wilson are dead," Bernard said. "We've got this."
Atreides inclined his head. “Cliff and Perry are dead.”
"I'll join you as soon as I can," Rosa said.
Then Atreides took Selena to his home to the room where they ministered to wounded vampires who didn't have fatal injuries and called for their doctor. "Selena's been shot twice. She's bleeding bad." In the meantime, Atreides was binding her wounds as his housekeeper ran to get blood for her. Selena would need a transfusion, but within minutes, the doctor was there. Selena looked ghostly pale and she'd lost consciousness as soon as he'd transported her to his home.
"How is she doing?" the doctor asked.
Atreides was afraid he would lose her. But could he? Would her vampire half win out? Her huntress side could have been dead. "She has lost a lot of blood."
"Have someone available to give her blood. Drinking it won't help in this case."
Atreides began pulling up his sleeve. "I will."
"Humans did this?" the doctor asked as he put Selena under.
Only humans fired guns at each other. Sometimes at vampires, but it was rarely fatal. He hadn't heard of them trying to kill a hunter in that way, which was why these bastards had resorted to using guns.
"Rogue hunters."
The doctor shook his head. "I hope this doesn't lead to a trend among their kind and ours." He began to remove one of the bullets, his nurse showing up unexpectedly to help.
She started a blood transfusion from Atreides to Selena.
"Are these the men who killed the vampiresses?" the doctor asked, working on the second bullet.
"Yes. We got three of them for sure. Other hunters were at the scene to take down the others." Atreides was about to telepathically ask Eliza if the other men were dead, but he hadn't wanted to interfere if they were in the middle of a fight.
Then he got a call from Daniel. "How's Selena?"
"In surgery. Is everyone all right there?"
"Eliza killed one of the hunters. Bernard was going to take the credit, but she said she would go down as a martyr if she had to because she was claiming the kill of a rogue hunter. I managed to kill the other but got shot."
"How bad?"
"Not bad, but Eliza took me to a hunter facility to have a doctor remove the bullet."
"And you're still talking to me?"
"I'm just along for the ride. I'll be there shortly. Rosa is headed your way. Colt's taking her. I'll see you all as soon as I'm out of surgery."
"Take it easy, and thanks, Daniel, for helping us with this."
"Of course. Thanks for helping us and taking care of both my sisters." Then they ended the call.
Atreides saw the doctor remove the last bullet. "How is she?"
"She's beginning to heal already. She'll be fine. But I still can't believe that the rogue hunters would resort to using bullets."