A loud rumble and screeching tires alerted the people at The Fang. Through the windows, the darkness of the night offered no information. Everyone tensed, holding their breath. Lynn subtly shifted in her seat, angled her body towards the kitchen door, a hand slowly reaching down to grab her backpack.
The door burst open with a kick.
“Get me Holly!” Kavagh yelled, a limp body held in his arms.
People sprung into action. A woman was already moving to his side, flanked by Brock and another stocky man.
“Table. Now. Clear it,” the woman ordered.
Lynn was rooted in place as the children were taken away to the kitchen, men ran outside to check and communicate that the rest of their brothers were around the corner.
Nev. Where the fuck is Nev?
The figure in the table made a strange, gurgling sound, like choking on something. Lynn snapped her attention to them. Blood. She was choking on her own blood.
“Tilt her to the side,” Holly commanded, a medical bag by her side. “Talk to me, Kavagh. What am I looking for?”
Kavagh’s deep, rumbling voice surged, “Gunshot wound on the abdomen. I couldn’t see well for the blood, but I kept pressure all the ride here.” His hands shook as he took a step to the side, Lynn noted, but he fisted them to hide it. “Also, I think something’s wrong with her leg,” he added. Could anyone else hear the slight tremble in his voice?
Holly got to work, barking orders to the men assisting her. Cut her clothes. Keep the pressure. Turn her around. No, don’t fucking move her anymore.
Lynn could only stare in a daze.
There was so much blood. Hands and clothes and faces stained with it. Pooling on the wooden table and falling to the sides, coating the floor in a sickening dark pool. The squelching sound their footsteps now made sounded absurdly loud to Lynn’s ears.
“Don’t you fucking dare die on me, Fritz!” Kavagh shouted over the chaos.
The woman she had talked to yesterday? That limp body with the battered, almost unrecognizable face, was her? Nausea pooled in Lynn’s gut.
More people burst through the door. Burly men in leather jackets caked in mud and blood, faces grim, shoulders slumped.
Lynn spotted one of Nev’s friends and approached him. “Where is he—” she started, but the guy put a single hand on her shoulder, didn’t meet her eyes.
Then he shook his head.
The world kept moving. Of course it did. Someone called for Holly again. Kavagh was barking orders. Children were crying.
But Lynn wasn’t moving.
Nev.
“I can stop the bleeding enough to stabilize her, but Kavagh,” said Holly in a grave tone, “you need to take her to the hospital.”
“Shit” was his answer. Then, “Okay. Okay. Bring me a car!”
A makeshift stretcher was built. Fritz’s body lifted carefully, like one would a sleeping child as not to wake them. Two of the men carried her to the front door.
Lynn still didn’t move.
Nev. Nev. Nev.
“Clear the way!” Someone shouted.
Someone else pushed her aside roughly. She stumbled back, crashed with a chair and fell to the floor. She stayed there.
The world kept moving. With Fritz in a car being taken to the hospital by Kavagh, the rest of the members were dealing with the aftermath. An agonized cry sounded exactly two times, from different people. Bodies walked past her, out the door, into the cold night and back to their homes. Engines rumbled, then drifted away.
“Matchstick?” a deep voice called to her.
Lynn didn’t—she couldn’t move.
Nev. Nev. Nev—
Big, rough hands grabbed her under the arms, lifted her, sat her in a chair. Brock crouched in front, trying to catch her eyes shrouded by copper strands of hair.
“Who?” he merely asked in a broken voice.
Lynn whispered, “Nev.”
Then the tears fell.