In the pit of my stomach, dread became a churning storm. Isaac wasn’t going to make it.
And none of them seemed to care.
“Welcome to the family,” Saul added, finishing the button on his pants and turning to stare out the window.
Chapter 26
Game Over
Tara
Elididdrivefaster,skirting the speed limit until we were flying over the bridge that separated Port O’Henry from the rest of the gulf coast.
Streams of cool, salty air slipped in through the cracked windows, dulling the bitter scent of blood. I sucked in lungfuls, willing the cold to slow my heart rate. To freeze the adrenaline coursing painfully through my body, making me shake.
My palm pressed softly against Isaac’s chest, the weak thump of his heart the only reassurance that he was alive. He wasso stillthat I almost couldn’t see him breathing.
Saul was a statue in the seat beside me, his features etched from stone.
The truck bumped off the main road, jolting and bouncing across potholes and uneven gravel, and it was there. A shift in the air. Salt giving way to something sweeter—older.
When Isaac brought me here earlier, it was foreign. A world that wasn’t meant for me.
I had changed since then. My insides transformed and twisted the way Isaac and his brothers transformed on the outside. Remade into something new, something darker and harder.
I watched Saul leap from the truck, coming around to our side and heaving a limp Isaac in his arms. I watched Isaac’s head flop to the side, his eyes closed in a way that made him look lifeless.
Cady and Eli hurried after Saul, climbing the stairs to Eli’s house and throwing open the door.
I let one swift moment pass. Sitting alone in the back of the truck, Isaac’s blood drying on my arm. Breathing.
Then I took the stairs two at a time, determined to throw myself into the chaos. To do something—anything—to make Isaac live.
I was breathing because of him. Because he stood like a wall between me and danger. Now it was my turn. To stand between him and death. To make him hold on a little longer.
Saul and Eli were snapping at each other when I stepped into the living room. Cady was rummaging through a depleted first aid kit, tossing fistfuls of gauze at Isaac.
“Why isn’t it closing?” Saul growled, pulling a tourniquet tight over Isaac’s left thigh. “This shouldn’t still be bleeding.”
Eli swiped an alcohol wipe over Isaac’s stomach, clearing away a layer of grime and revealing the dark bruising that was blooming beneath his skin.
“He’s bleeding internally,” I told Saul as calmly as I could. “There’s more damage than you can see.”
I knelt beside the couch where Isaac was sprawled out, trying to block out the rhythmic drip of his blood hitting the leather. My palm grazed over his stomach, studying the pattern of purple, and he made a noise for the first time since we put him in the car.
Saul glanced between us, glaring at our interlocked hands. He sighed, closing his eyes for a second too long before that silver gaze blazed brighter, locked directly on me.
“I’m real sorry about this, miss Tara, but I have to keep my promises.”
I scowled, not understanding the apology or why he suddenly appeared to be sizing me up.
“Cady, go sit in the truck,” Eli ordered.
“What—"
“Now!”
Cady jumped, scurrying to the door with wide eyes. Eli bristled beside his brother, hands stilling on a piece of gauze that was halfway wrapped around Isaac’s bicep.