What Sinners Love (Sinners of Hawthorne University 3)

He can’t die, I think wildly, panic sinking in. We have to get him to safety. We need to get help.

“You need to live,” I plead with him, my hands pressing into the skin on his face, turning his head to look at me. His eyes don’t open. “Fuck. Please! You need to live for me, Gray.”

He groans, but I think it might just be my imagination when I look at the wound in his side, oozing blood. I need to find something to stop the bleeding, need to put pressure on it so we can keep him alive until help comes, but I don’t want to leave his side.

“Elias, look for something to—”

My voice stops dead in my throat as movement catches my eye. Alan’s eyes snap open as he drags in a gasping breath, and he shoves himself up from the floor with a feral groan. His eyes are swollen, his face scratched up, and his neck deeply bruised.

But he’s not fucking dead.

This time, I don’t have a chance to lunge for him. I’m too fucking far away. Going up on his knees, Alan reaches for one of the weapons on a shelf beside him, blood and spit trailing from the corner of his mouth. He snatches it up, his hands trembling as he aims at me and begins to pull the trigger.

But Declan moves faster, his body lunging and thudding on the floor as he scoops up the gun that flew out of Alan’s hands earlier… and shoots.

The bunker is filled with the pop of one more bullet firing, and Alan staggers back, blood spreading over the front of his jacket.

Then he falls.

And this time, I know he won’t get back up. Ever.

25

My heart beats so loudly that it’s all I can hear for a solid minute as I take in the scene around me. My father and Alan are both dead, and Gray is about to die any second if we don’t get him help. I try to meet Declan’s gaze, but he’s staring at Alan with shock in his eyes, glancing between his body and the gun on the floor.

“You had to do it,” Elias tells him gruffly. “It was self-defense.”

Declan doesn’t respond. I want to reach over and take the gun from him, to make sure my fingerprints are on it, but I can’t leave Gray’s side.

“We need to get an ambulance here.” I lick my dry lips. “And cops. Fuck, this looks bad.”

We’re trapped in a hidden underground storage unit with two dead bodies of rich, important people, one of whom I recently accused of kidnapping me. Not to mention the fact that the bunker is loaded with contraband.

“We’re innocent. They’ll see it.” Elias says, but still, I glance over at Alan. Even though I know he really is fucking dead this time, I almost don’t believe it. Part of me still thinks he’ll find a way to manipulate the situation, to pull strings and twist things, even though he can’t do any of that now.

“I don’t have my phone. Does anyone have a signal down here?” I ask. It must have gotten lost in the scramble, but that’s the least of my priorities right now.

Declan pulls his out of his pocket. His fingers tremble as he dials 911. They pick up quickly, and he tells them where we are and how to get here.

“We need to get him help,” I croak, pressing hard against Gray’s wound with the heel of my hand, trying to staunch the flow of blood. “He still has a pulse, but we need to…”

“I know, Blue.” Elias’s voice is strained. “I know. He’ll be okay. The ambulance is coming.”

It seems to take forever. We all sit gathered around Gray in a silent vigil, and I keep my hands pressed against him, desperate to keep him from losing any more blood.

Finally, sirens sound in the distance. My stomach does an unpleasant dip and swoop, and I pray again to that nameless entity I don’t know if I really believe in.

Please, let him live. Fucking please.

We make our way back up to the entrance of the bunker as the sound of sirens grows louder, the sun glaringly hot. I blink against the light, so bright compared to the dim artificial light of the bunker.

An entourage of emergency vehicles shows up, trundling over the uneven ground on the barely-there road. Within minutes of us climbing to the surface, paramedics and police officers flood the scene. I’m not really sure where to stand or what to say or do as they flock around us. The EMTs pull Gray from Declan and Elias’s hold, and several cops head down into the bunker with grim looks on their faces and weapons drawn.

I wrap my arms around myself, ignoring the bruises and cracks on my knuckles as the emergency team gets Gray onto a stretcher, cutting off his shirt and assessing his injury. I want to follow him into the ambulance as they load him up, but the doors close behind him, cutting off my view.

My head swivels on my neck as I search for the other two Sinners in the suddenly crowded clearing. I find Declan off to one side, being questioned by a police officer who’s holding a notepad and jotting down notes. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I know Decla

n’s giving a statement on what happened, something I’ll have to do soon as well.