Carter Reed novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Not Asking

The fire had not finished lighting the courtyard when Carter grabbed my arm.

"Upstairs," he said. "Lock the door. Take Tori."

"No."

"Calla."

"Your men are bleeding out there. I'm the only one in this building who can stop it."

He looked at me for a moment.

Then he put a pistol in my good hand and said, "Stay behind me."

The courtyard was smoke and shouting and the wet crack of rifles.

A gunman in a grey jacket was coming through the burning gate, and Carter shot him without breaking stride.

I don't know how long it lasted.

Four minutes, maybe five.

When it ended, three of the attackers lay in the yard and the rest were running.

One of Carter's guards was down by the wall with a hole through his thigh.

I dropped to my knees beside him and tore my sleeve into a tourniquet.

"Hold this. Higher. Press until I say."

"Yes, ma'am," he said, grey-faced.

"I'm twenty-six."

"Yes, ma'am."

By the time the ambulance came for him, the bleeding had stopped and the men around me had gone quiet and watchful.

Carter stood at the gate with his left sleeve black from shoulder to elbow.

"You're hit," I said.

"It's nothing."

"It's the opposite of nothing. Kitchen."

He didn't argue.

In the kitchen, under the hard white light, I cut his sweater off his arm.

The bullet had cut a groove across the outside of his bicep, deep and ugly and clean.

I washed it, numbed it, and began to stitch.

He watched my hands, not the needle.

"Wyatt never told me you were this good," he said.

"Wyatt never saw me work."

"He'd have been proud."

"Don't."

"All right."

I tied the last knot and kept my fingers on his arm.

His skin was hot, and I could feel his pulse in it, strong and a little fast.

"You've been sitting outside my door for three nights," I said.

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