It doesn’t shatter, but he’s already weak, so it causes him to slouch over even more.

I crawl across the floor, scrambling for the gun, but she spins, catching me off guard and kicks me in the head. I fall back, allowing her to grab it once again.

She points the gun at Captain again, pushing the barrel against his head.

His eyes meet mine a moment before they roll closed.

“Don’t!” I scream, rushing to my feet, but my head is pounding, and I fall back to my knees.

“I warned them,” she says monotone. She cocks the gun back with both hands. Moving her finger to the trigger.

She braces herself, and only seconds before she shoots, does my blade pierce her gut, the move causing the bullet to only graze across Captain’s shoulder.

He flops, his head hanging lifeless against his chest, hand falling from his wound as he goes unconscious.

She crumbles too, and with me standing at her back, the sudden weight of her loose body takes me down with her.

I tumble to my ass while she falls on top of me.

My knife still in her side, she shifts in my lap, her watery eyes wide and on me. “I told them they’d never get another piece of me.” She coughs, blood now spilling from her mouth. She spits in my face, but I don’t even flinch as her mucus and blood splashes against my skin. “I should have shot you instead,” she realizes.

Sensing her next move, I grip the handle of my knife right as she swings the gun around, pushing it into my throat just beneath my jaw.

She grunts, her legs stretching out as her forehead tightens. Her breaths are coming quicker, shorter, now. “I have to.”

I push against the cool metal, my body shaking, unwelcome moisture building to the surface. “I dare you.”

She blinks once.

“Raven.” She states my name rather than saying it as she tries to smirk through the blood, a vile look in her eye. “It’s an interesting name... isn’t it? So much hidden meaning and only one letter short.” Her entire body jolts with her coughs, and she groans. “You... you ruined... everything.”

I don’t speak.

“Still, he doesn’t get to have you.” She cocks the gun, her eyes hardening through her tears, but the tears aren’t for me, they’re for herself.

The door is kicked open, but I don’t dare look.

She does though, and it’s just long enough to distract her.

I smash my lips together and with a loud, angry grunt, I twist the blade, driving it deeper into her flesh.

She tries to swallow but chokes, her hand clawing at my arm.

Her nose turns red as her nostrils flare. Her eyes slice to mine, the first and only time I have ever seen regret or remorse from her. Her fingernails scratch across my stomach. “This is the only thing that will save you now.” Her body jolts as she fights for air. “Ha—” she croaks. “Happy birthday, daughter. I hate you.”

My nose tingles, but I bite into my cheek to hold onto myself. “Don’t worry, Mom. I know.”

A broken gasp leaves her. Her eyes squeeze one second, her body going limp in the next.

A pair of black boots come into view, and slowly I pull my gaze up.

Bass Bishop.

My mother dies in my arms.

At my hand.

What feels like an eternity later, must only be seconds as Bass is only now quietly pushing the door closed behind him. He props a chair against it to keep it from falling open since he busted the lock from the frame.

He rushes to Captain and feels for a pulse while looking me over.

“It’s not mine,” I tell him when he glares at the blood covering my shirt and lap.

He glowers harder at my head and the blood falling from it, and then pulls out his phone.

“Don’t call them.”

His eyes cut to mine as he slowly lifts his cell to his ear. He frowns. “Yeah... hi. I found a man bleeding in room 109 at Vermont, he was shot and he’s out cold.” He raises his finger to his lips, listening before he says, “There’s a woman, too.” He ends the call.

Bass stands, walking over, and crouches to his knees in front of me.

I don’t realize what he’s doing until his hand covers mine.

Mine drops at the contact.

“Let go of the knife, Raven.”

My fingers fly open, but he has to pull my hand back.

He gently reaches up and turns my head toward him. The sloshy sound of the blade being ripped from flesh fills the air and I double over, vomiting across his shoes and my right leg.

“Come on.” He grips me under my arms, pulling me up and my mom’s body falls to the floor with a thud.

Bass sets me on the bed and quickly runs into the bathroom, coming back with two wet towels. One he uses to wipe across my chin, the other he gently places around my neck.

He pulls me to my feet and rushes us toward the door, but I yank away, falling against the wall.

“What... what are you doing?” I shake my head.

“We’re leaving.”

“Like hell.”

Bass gets in my face. “Get the fuck out of this room, Raven. Now,” he growls, but worry swims in his eyes.

“I say what goes on here!” I shout, making a mockery of myself. A wetness coats my cheeks – blood or tears, I don’t fucking know. “Not you!”

“You’re right. Still, we need to leave.”

“I won’t leave him here.”

“There is a man shot and a woman dead. We have to get you out before someone comes knocking.”

“That is Captain bleeding out on the fucking floor! I leave, and he dies?!” I bark, ignoring the throbbing it creates at my temples. “Alone beside that piece of shit?! Fuck you!” I shove at him. “I’m going to the hospital with him!”

Bass curses and before I know what he’s doing he has me spun around, my back to his front, my arms and stomach smashed against the wall. He covers my mouth and plugs my nose, suffocating me.

“Stop fidgeting, it’ll hurt your wounds,” he says, tightening his hold.

I’m weak, but I claw at his arms.

His chest expands against my back. “I have to get you out of here, Raven. You are priority. Don’t worry,” he whispers softly as my body starts to sway. “They’re coming for him.”

They – he didn’t call the ambulance.

He called his brothers.

Fuck!

Everything goes black.

My eyes open, my vision blurry at first, but it only takes a second for it to clear.

Bass Bishop comes into view.

The tautness of his features tells me he’s unsure of his next move.

Good.

“Captain,” I rasp.

“In surgery.” He eyes me, and I don’t have to ask. “Royce is on his way to get you.”

Not Maddoc.

I close my eyes again, giving a small nod.

This is all my fault. A little girl almost lost her dad today because of me. Everyone will have questions. They’ll ask me why she was there, what she said, and what followed. Questions that will lead to more questions, most of those being ones I have no answers for.

She spoke in riddles that were lost on me, acted like she was doing me a favor by walking in there with a gun and attempting to take a life, then following up with trying to take mine.