Isaiah
It was chaos.A heavy bout of turmoil seemed to blast me from behind, but I kept moving forward. My feet slapped against the glossy tiled floor, and although I’d been in this place before, it all felt so foreign to me because my mind was centered on one thing: the small body lying at the end of the hall that I’d just watched crash to the ground in a heap of blood with my name on the end of her lips.
There was a lot of blood. I zeroed in on it, and the panic hammered through my skin like the bullets I could hear at my back.
I wasn’t sure who was shooting: the enemy or the rescuer. I didn’t care as long as I got to her. It was selfish, but I was man enough to admit that.
Jesus Christ. My knees hit the ground as I bypassed an unconscious Richard Stallard. If we were in any other situation and Gemma wasn’t lying in a pool of red blood, I would have pulled my gun out and killed him right then, but she outweighed any amount of anger that I felt. My heart was in my hands, beating for her and only her, and it canceled out every single thing going on around me.
“Gemma,” I gasped. My face was wet, and my hands were shaking. I was always in control until it came to her. Even when I had found Journey bleeding in the courtyard last spring, I’d had my head straight on my shoulders as I picked her up and called an ambulance. I was worried but controlled. With Gemma, I was fucking lost.
Her limp body felt like a feather in my arms as I rushed down the hall, going past the FBI and ATF like they were completely invisible. They ran past me with their guns pointed, and I ran past them with my eyes set on the door.
“Get me a fucking ambulance!” my voice rang through the raging chaos, and Tobias and my uncle, who were two steps behind me when we’d entered the Covens, stopped dead in their tracks at the sound of my demand. Tobias’ mouth fell, and the hard shell that he’d formed around himself from the second he stepped in my uncle’s office an hour and half ago was shattered like glass.
They rushed over to me as everyone went in the opposite direction. Tobias’ hand came up to wipe at his face, but he didn’t dare touch her. “Gemma, what did he do to you?”
There were marks all over her body. Bruises and blood and her fucking wrists. I almost turned on my heel and went back down the hall to grab Richard by his throat, but I didn’t. Gemma needed help—right fucking now.
We were back outside a second later, and both Gemma’s brother and my uncle were beside me. “Jacobi! Where the fuck is Jacobi? I need an ambulance.”
Everything had been a blur from the moment we had gotten here. I went into the side door of the Covens before the FBI and ATF. I didn’t know it until I heard my brother’s voice from behind, telling me to stand down, but I didn’t listen. Neither did my uncle, Tobias, Brantley, or Cade. We stormed the place. Brantley, Cade, and Tobias went in one direction, looking for the guards that should have been there, and then it seemed, seconds later, we had SWAT at our backs.
For all I knew, shit could have still been going down inside the Covens. I wouldn’t know, though, because as soon as I grabbed Gemma, I did what I intended to do.
The mist in the air did nothing but add to the sweat glistening on my skin as I ran with Gemma in my arms toward the sight of my older brother wearing his FBI jacket.
“Jacobi, I need a fucking ambulance!” I didn’t even recognize the sound of my voice. I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder as Jacobi looked down at Gemma and pushed us toward flashing lights. He pulled his radio up and mumbled something about needing medical attention right away, and then Gemma was ripped from my arms, and Jacobi was in my face, forcing me backward.
“Let them take care of her, brother!” His eyes were the same color as my mom’s, and it split me right down the middle. I glanced behind his shoulder and watched as two paramedics started working on Gemma, feeling for a pulse, opening her eyes with a small flashlight and then slamming the doors and turning their sirens on.
“No!” I pushed at Jacobi as his fingers dug into my chest. Tobias and my uncle were holding my arms back as I thrashed. “Let me go with her! I have to go with her. She can’t be alone!”
“She is safe, Isaiah. I promise you. She is safe with them.” Jacobi’s pleads flew into my ears, but it did nothing to settle me. Nothing was getting through the adrenaline and panic.
“How do you know?” That came from Tobias, and I could tell he was just as irritated as I was. “Do you know how many fucking dirty cops there are in the world? Do you know how many men knew about this place and did nothing to stop it? Do you know how many men were fucking created here? How can we trust anyone?”
Jacobi’s hands left my chest, and my fists clenched by my sides as I stared down the darkened road. The flashing lights were only at my back now instead of at my front. I’m going after her.
“I would never send her with someone I didn’t trust. I will send some of my trusted men to the hospital. You can go there now. I don’t want you near your father.”
Our father. He meant our father. “He’s still alive?”
He nodded. “Three shots went off right before you flew through the side door. My men were already on their way down the stairs. They went through the psych unit to secure it first. Your father, along with Cade’s and Brantley’s all had flesh wounds. They were trying to flee, along with some guards, but we got them.” Jacobi looked at my uncle. “Take them and go.”
“I want to stay.”
That came from Tobias, and my back stiffened. “What?”
There was a cloud behind his blue eyes, something dark and troubled. “I trust you to keep my sister safe. She’ll want to see you when she wakes.”
If. If she wakes.
The thought did not escape me once, and the pain that came with it radiated all the way down to my heels and back.
“That’s good. We need you to stay. We have questions, and I think you’ll be able to answer them.”
“I’ll answer anything you want as long as you let me see Richard. Dead or alive.”
Murder was in his tone, but nonetheless, Jacobi nodded and inched his head to everything unfolding behind us. Tobias turned without saying a word, and I could tell that my uncle wanted to go after him, but the second he stepped a foot forward, Tobias glanced back. “She needs to know you are her father. She needs to know there is one sane person left in our family.”
My uncle stopped mid-step as Jacobi interjected. “I’ll have an officer escort you to the hospital, along with Cade and Brantley. They’re already with Special Agent Gibbons. A bunch of fucking teenagers swarming the Covens,” he mumbled the last part under his breath and then pulled his radio and began spouting things off as we watched Tobias head toward a group of men and women all wearing the same FBI gear my older brother was wearing.
Jacobi looked at me for a painfully long second, something passing between us that I was unable to sort through with my mind somewhere else. He nodded. I nodded back. And then my uncle and I were both in the back of a squad car, on our way to see Gemma.
To see if she was alive.