Page 68 of Falcon’s Forever

"Move!" I grab Frankie and pull her into the hall as another round hits, and there's more shouting, Sterling now too, everything is happening too fast to separate one sound from another.

I get her into the living room. "Down!"

Everyone drops, the room is full of frightened breathing, and someone is whispering a prayer under her breath. It’s the sound of my club fighting outside for a house full of women who've already survived worse than this once.

I kneel by Emily. "Stay low."

"Are they coming in?" she whispers.

"No." I stop myself before I say more, because I can't promise that. "We're ready if they do."

That's the truth, and it's better than a lie would've been. Something shatters at the side window and a woman screams. Then the front door bangs open. Everyone recoils and I raise the bat.

"Saint’s!" Sterling comes through first, both hands up where we can see them. Ice Pick follows behind him with blood on one sleeve.

"Back room's clear," he says. "One shooter got as far as the kitchen exterior, but he didn't enter."

"Your arm?" I ask.

"Not mine." He looks down then shakes his head.

Sterling looks around the room, counting the same way I already have. Sarah. Maya. Emily. Rachel. Lena. Frankie. All accounted for.

Then someone cries out behind me. Emily's staring down at her side, and for a second my brain refuses to understand it, because she was fine two minutes ago. That’s when I see the tear in her shirt and the blood and everything in me stops.

"No." I can’t help the strangled sound that leaves my throat.

I drop beside her. "Emily?"

She looks at me, her face gone gray. "I feel weird."

"Get Knox!" I press both hands over the wound, blood pushing between my fingers, warm and too much. But I don't leave.

"Emily, look at me.” I need to distract her.

“Am I dying?" Her voice cracks on the question, and I know exactly what it feels like to ask it and wait for someone else to decide.

"No." The word comes before I can stop it, and I hate myself for promising something I don't know. "Knox is coming, and we're going to keep you with us until he gets here. Can you do that?"

Emily begins to cry. “I don’t want to die.”

“You’re not doing anything except breathing for me,” I tell her. “That’s your only job right now.”

My hands are shaking, but I press harder against the wound.

Emily cries out.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I know it hurts.”

Frankie drops beside me with towels from the emergency kit. I keep talking because talking means breathing. It keeps me breathing, and it keeps Emily with me.

“What’s your favourite colour?” I ask.

Emily stares at me through her tears. “What?”

“Your favourite colour,” I repeat. “Tell me.”

“Yellow,” she answers weakly.