“Leo?” Mum rolls Wayne onto his side, getting out from under him. There’s barely a scratch on her. It’s like she wasn’t in the car with us with how perfect she still looks. Her shock is rattling her body as she looks at the ground beneath me.
“He’s coming.” She trembles. “He’s coming…he’s coming…”
I fucking hope Francis gets here soon because I have no idea how the fuck we’re getting out of this.
“Cass?” I whisper between us, trying to make sure she’s doing all right. I tried to break all the knocks and impacts, but her dress makes it impossible to get close enough to bundle her up properly. “Cassie?”
Finding her face beneath all the tangled hair, my thundering heart falters at the sight of blood marring it. She’s so pale that her skin is glowing in the dark. Her hair is peppered with shattered glass. There’s a cut right across the bridge of her nose and down one side of her mouth, from the corner of her top lip to the bottom one.
I need to get her out of here. I need to get her to safety. But right now, this is the only shield we have. This is safety.
Edging us both down the body of the limo, so that Wayne’s bulk is shielding her from the left side, I roll her onto her right side.
“Buttercup?”
I look over her face as her eyes flicker open and grab the semi-automatic Wayne handed me earlier. I need my phone. I know it’s in the inside pocket of my tux jacket, but my hand is shaking so much that I can’t seem to find it.
“Leo…” she whispers. Her voice so faint and croaky, like when she wakes up.
Digging deeper into my pocket, I pull out my phone. The screen lights up and there are so many notifications I can’t unlock the damn thing without opening every other cunting message. My thumb hits one of the missed calls and before I can get it to my ear, Casper’s picking up.
“Where the fuck are you?” he shouts down the line.
“I don’t know,” I rush as quietly as I can with my uneven breaths. Peering out of the closest window, I try to make out any landmarks, “Waterloo Bridge. We’ve been t-boned. We’re in the middle, surrounded. Wayne’s out.”
“Fuck. Fuck. FUCK! We’ll be right there. Don’t move. Don’t get out of that motherfucking car, Fairfax.”
“What’s happening?”
“War.” That’s the only thing he says before he puts the phone down.
War.
I’ve been waiting for it. I’ve been ready, but tonight, I let my guard down. I fucked up.
We’ve been working on this plan since the rave. Carefully putting everything together so that it played our way.
It hasn’t.
“She’s bleeding,” Mum kneels between Cassie and Wayne and her hands run over the crimson-soaked bodice of Cassie’s dress.
Knocking her hands away, I trace the sopping fabric until my finger finds the source.
“She’s been hit.”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit!
“What? That’s imp—” She cuts off and when I look up at her, following her gaze, I want to vomit. “It was an accident, Leo.”
Fuck!
“Wayne would never hurt her. So much was going on…”
I know, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to take his gun and use it on him. Fault isn’t something I can accurately gauge right now. Maybe I should’ve shielded her better.
“Focus,” Mum grasps my face in her hands, like she used to when I was a child and couldn’t rein my temper in. “We need to help her.”
I do exactly as she tells me to. I focus on the only important thing right now…my Little Queen.