Austin clenched his jaw while I looked at the kid with a new fucking respect.
“Let him do his thing,” Austin finally gave in.
Adrian needed nothing more as he quickly turned his attention back to Avery. “Go to Gage,” Adrian ordered, his fingers pressed to Avery’s throat. “Your son needs you.”
I could hear him crying.
I’d know that sound fucking anywhere.
“Go, Shotgun,” Shake cut in, his hand on my shoulder. “I got your girl. I’ll sit with her. Your boy needs his dad.”
I felt like I was being torn in half. Everything in me screaming to protect them both but being forced to fucking choose.
“Get. Gage.” Avery’s pained whisper pulled me back, her eyes on me glazed with tears. It was the reminder of just the type of fucking woman she was. Just how goddamn strong she was, how I should have known she would put Gage first before herself.
It was also a reminder of how I needed to trust my men, my brothers, my fucking family—finally allowing Shake to pull me back from the wreckage. My feet felt like they weighed a ton, and now I was struggling to move to walk.
But then Gage cried, and I broke through those heavy weights holding me down and rushed across the street where Kid was fighting to settle my boy. “Give him here.” He handed him straight to me, and I pressed his tiny body against my chest, remembering how Avery had gotten him to settle that first night.
It had become a thing.
A place he loved to be.
Lying across my chest, listening to me talk shit about nothing.
With his tiny head settled against my heart, I started to do just that.
“She’s gonna be okay, you know,” I told him, trying to keep my voice calm and even. An awkward balancing act when all it wanted to do was break. “The fire engines are coming…”
Gage’s cries became quieter and quieter.
Not even picking back up when the fire truck and ambulance came screeching around the corner.
I just kept talking.
My brothers standing beside me saying nothing, letting me ramble on as I explained what they were doing, and trying not to lose my shit when Avery’s painful scream echoed down the darkening street. My feet unconsciously carried me forward, holding Gage tighter, but also determined to do something.
Fucking anything to ease her pain.
To keep her safe.
Shake and Bandit grabbed me, Myth stepping in front of me and pressing his hand softly to Gage’s back, forcing me to take a step back onto the fucking curb and pace.
“It’s okay. She’s okay,” I whispered, bouncing and pacing.
I wasn’t sure at this stage who I was trying to convince—him or me.
“Let me take him.” I had no idea how long I’d been pacing the sidewalk, but I turned just as Adrian rushed across the road, his arms reaching out toward me. “If you hurry, you can get in the ambulance with her. I’ll take Gage home, look after him until you know more.” The look in his eyes was blank, almost as though he was looking straight through me.
He’d done this before.
Been through this.
But I understood the difference between helping a hurt stranger and helping a hurt friend.
I shook my head. “No. You’re gonna go home and look after your fucking self.”
Shake stepped in instantly, his eyes meeting mine and giving me a knowing nod before slipping my son from my arms and walking away. I held my breath as I watched him go, meeting Meyah, Laken, and Angel at the edge of the police cordon, who quickly ushered him into the back of Meyah’s SUV.
“Come on, man,” Bandit urged, stepping forward and placing his hand on Adrian’s shoulder, giving it a hard squeeze.
Though his bloodshot eyes didn’t deviate from mine. “She was awake, conscious, not in too much pain. She’ll be okay,” he announced with confidence, his head bobbing up and down like he was noting the things to himself as well as to me.
“I know.”
That was all I could say.
There was nothing else.
AVERY
My throat was dry.
It tickled, and I tried to clear it, but each time I did, it just got worse.
I coughed, trying to fight that tingle, that twitch.
“Baby, drink.”
Shotgun?
I blinked, the bright lights fighting me.
Who the hell turned the sun on inside?
My vision slowly cleared, everything so fucking white. So clean. So fucking pristine. All except the shadowy figures standing over me. Maybe with all the shit I’d done in my life, I was finally headed to hell, and these were the demons sent to take me there.
Maybe I should have been scared.
Petrified.
But it was the shadows that gave me comfort. Their leather smell, the way they spoke, and even the touch of Shotgun’s rough, calloused hand in mine as he gave it a squeeze.
“Hey,” I croaked, trying to force a smile and instantly regretting it. My lip smarted, the split down the center what I remember being courtesy of my steering wheel, instantly splitting open again. “Damn,” I muttered, the vision I’d just been thankful for clearing now blurred by tears.
“Drink some water,” Shotgun ordered, holding a glass and maneuvering a straw into my mouth.
I sucked up a few mouthfuls, but I swear all I could taste was blood.
My blood.
God, I’d got it everywhere.
The wheel. The airbag. All down my cloth—
“Gage!” I gasped, my fingers clawing at Shotgun’s hand, my eyes looking up to meet his. “Is he…”
“Fine,” Shotgun placated me, pressing his hand to my head and forcing me to sink back into the bed. There was pain, and it was not fucking nice, but so far, it was bearable. “He got checked out and went home with the girls.”
It was the sigh of relief that got me.
The pain in my side forcing me to curl in on myself and squeeze my eyes shut. Shotgun didn’t let me go, allowing me to squeeze the crap out of his hand as I fought to find a comfortable position again.
“You’ve got a couple of bruised ribs. A sprained ankle. And a handful of cuts and bruises that will be fucking uncomfortable for a few days,” Shotgun rattled off, his thumb stroking the back of my hand. “Your lip is probably the worse. Four stitches in that fucking split.”
My tongue flicked out, feeling at the little fuzzy ends of the stitches.
“They’ll dissolve in like a week.”
“Good.”
“We’ll leave you two for a little bit,” Shake announced with a nod to Shotgun before ushering the handful of brothers in my room to the door.
“Shake,” Shotgun called before the door was pulled shut. He kept his eyes on me, his hand still brushing gently at mine.
“Yeah.”
“Can you ask one of the girls to bring Gage in to visit?” My hand squeezed his a little tighter, and he let out a huff of laughter while shaking his head. “Think she wants to see him more than she wants to see me.”
“He’s cuter.”
“He still poops in his pants,” Shotgun challenged, his smirk growing wider.
“We all make sacrifices for the men we love.”
Shake’s laughter followed him down the hall. His announcement at the end of the hall that I was going to be just fine was one even I found myself letting out a thankful sigh too.