I’m having trouble focusing. There’s a dull ache just below my ribs. I touch my stomach and lift my hand to my eyes. It’s slick with blood. I’ve been shot. This thought dawns on me slowly like a cresting wave. But Ethan’s okay. Clay’s okay. The man with the gun isn’t moving. Darkness creeps around the edges of my vision.

Ethan’s crying behind me. I want to comfort him, but I can’t move. Then Clay’s above me. He reaches down and touches my stomach. It’s the first time I feel pain, but it’s fuzzy and far away. He’s ripping off my shirt. I want to tell him to stop. My secret will be revealed, but I’m being pulled backward into the blackness. The night air on my skin tells me my chest is bare. The shocked look on Clay’s face tells me my secret’s out.

Then it’s dark.

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Pain. Pain like being gutted.

I open my eyes. Clay’s carrying me in his arms. I try to speak, but my throat’s a dry cave. Pain sears my stomach. Hot coals burn me from the inside out. I writhe in Clay’s arms. He looks down to me, his face awash in worry. “Shh,” he murmurs sweetly. “We’ll get you help, Riley. Just hold on.”

I lean into his chest and inhale his musky, male scent. Then the pain rips through my abdomen. When I lose consciousness, it’s a sweet release.

* * *

Pain. Bouncing. I blink in the darkness. I’m in a dark box. Oh God, a coffin? Then I hear a car engine. We’re driving. I’m in the back of a car. We hit a bump and the pain blazes white-hot. I moan and pass out.

* * *

Light.

Then darkness.

Then light again. Light seeps through my eyelids and pokes at my brain. Ethan’s probably left the curtains open again. I try to throw a hand over my eyes, but my arm doesn’t want to move. I open my eyes.

Blinding white is all that registers. Then blurry black shapes form into furniture, a door, a bed. This isn’t my room. A dull pain twinges at my stomach as I move. Then it all comes flooding back—the gunshot, Ethan crying, Clay clutching me tight to his chest, telling me to hold on. I should be dead. No one survives a gunshot wound to the stomach. You bleed out in a messy puddle and if you’re lucky someone will bury you so the coyotes don’t eat your insides. Yet when I look down, there’s the outline of my legs under a thick beige blanket. My hands are curled on my lap, the nails clean and trimmed. Where am I?