Chapter 35 · Crimson Tourniquet

His blood was hot for about four seconds. Then the boathouse cold got to it, and it went tacky between my fingers.

It kept coming anyway. Bright red, in pulses, out of Lucian's thigh.

"Look at me," I said. "Lucian. Eyes on me."

"I'm looking." His voice was wet and wrong. "You're yelling."

"I'm not yelling."

I was yelling.

He'd thrown himself over me on the north pier. The first sniper round had punched through his chest, high on the right, and the second had torn his leg open as we went down. Then I'd dragged him, two hundred and ten pounds of Don, across wet planks and through a rusted side hatch. We ended up inside the boathouse, on a floor slick with diesel and seawater.

I didn't remember crossing the pier. I remembered his weight, his teeth clenched, and the little sucking sound his chest made every time he breathed in.

That sound scared me worse than the blood.

"Belt," I