“We’ve got a man with two bullet holes in the chest,” Remy told the person on the other end of the line, just as Sam rolled Ryan onto his side and inspected the back. “One looks like it went all the way through, meaning the other one’s still inside. He’s losing a lot of blood, but his husband’s a surgeon—a plastic one—so hopefully he can help until you get here.”
Throughout it all, the shooting never stopped. There were maybe five second pauses, but then it’d start back up again.
“Fuck me,” I hissed, opening up the red bag and laying it out next to Sam. “Does she have some sort of extended magazine that holds a thousand rounds or something?”
A pair of feet hit me in the thigh, and when I followed the legs they were attached to, it was to see Sasha half under my truck, with her head angled so she could see Fita.
“Tell them the whole back seat of her car’s full of them. I don’t know how many she’s got, but she’s packed them in there. She’s also got those bullet holding clips or magazine things on the front seat in one of those clear plastic crate doohickeys”—she paused, then added—“in pink.”
I passed a pack of gauze pads to Sam when she mentioned the “bullet holding clip or magazine things,” and by the time she added the “in pink,” I was shaking my head.
“My girl needs to get out into the world,” Ryan croaked. “I’m embarrassed.”
“When you’re better, we’ll take her out shooting and educate her on what a clip and magazine are, and the difference, honey,” Sam soothed as he wrapped an ace bandage tightly around Ryan’s chest.
“Now, I’m doing this to hold the stacks of pads in place, but I’m going to hold some by hand on the outside, too. The more pressure we apply, the better it’ll be. Jackson, can you support him on your chest and hold these on the wound on his back?”
He didn’t wait for me to agree, he just passed me what looked like a large lump of gauze.
Moving up onto my knees and ignoring the glass cutting into me through the denim of my jeans, I angled Ryan so his back was against my front and pressed them to where the covered wound on his back was.
“How are we going to get him to the ambulance when it arrives?” Sasha asked worriedly, still watching what Fita was doing. “She just ejects the bullet cartridge and shoves another one in, or she reaches for a new gun.”
This time it was Remy who looked at her over her terminology, a look of horror on his face. “Bullet cartridge?”
“Yeah, the holder thing you pop in the gun that holds the bullets.”
Slowly, his head turned in our directions. “You’re all to blame for this, all three of you.”
“Fuck,” Sam barked, looking around us frantically. “He’s got a hole in his forearm, too. I thought a bullet had skimmed him, but it’s gone all the way through, and it’s a heavy bleed.”
I was staring at the puddle of blood forming under a limb missing a large chunk, and wondered how we’d all missed it. More than likely, it was because of the way he’d been lying with it tightly pressed against his side and our focus had been purely on the visible injuries to his chest.
Remy didn’t even stop talking as he pulled a knife out of where he’d had it.
Pulling Milkshake out from under my truck, he cut his leash in half with the knife and passed the end still attached to him to Sasha.
She took it just as he pinched one end of the piece he was holding between his teeth and proceeded to wrap it tightly around Ryan’s arm, just above where the wound was in the middle of his forearm, until he finished it with a knot.
Then he went back to talking as Sam took over, wrapping a bandage around the wound, all the while threatening his husband. To be fair, I’d be saying the same thing if it was me.
“I swear to God, Ryan Adams, if you die, I’ll find a way to bring you back and kill you all over again. Then I’ll keep doing it, and I’ll get our daughter to erase your name from hers. I’ll also get a dog who’ll shit all over that expensive rug you love so much and give him your shoes to chew on.”
“Why are you being so mean?” he tried to snap, but he was too weak to do it properly.
“Because when bullets are flying, you’re meant to drop to the ground.”
“He didn’t.” Ryan’s head thudded heavily on my chest, indicating who the ‘he’ was.
“He’s not you. How do you expect a twelve-year-old, pimple-faced, dipshit to do what’s right?”
“Hey! I’m right here.”