Mine To Take Part 20

Trace kicked open the doors and rushed inside. His gun was up. Ready.

Dust and cobwebs covered the factory's interior.

Trace searched and searched but found nothing. Because the b.a.s.t.a.r.d led me here.

He'd led. Trace had followed. And I left Skye alone.

He whirled around and started racing back to Skye.

Trace had only gone about five feet when the bullet hit him.

Chapter Nine.

Another gunshot.

When Skye heard the thundering sound, her heart stopped. Alex ran toward the blast, and she dashed after him. Rushing faster, faster and- Trace was on the ground. Blood was all around him.

Just like Carol.

Just. Like. Carol.

"No!" Skye screamed.

Alex bent beside Trace. Backup-more cops-raced up around them.

Skye hit the ground beside Trace. So much blood.

"I'm...all right," Trace managed.

Her heart started to beat again.

"SOB fired from the south. Waited for me to make a target...of myself." His breath heaved out. "Bullet's still in my chest. I'll be...fine."

He'd better not be lying to her.

In his chest.

"He's...not as good," Trace managed, "with a gun...as he is...with a knife..."

Fear clawed at Skye's insides. She grabbed for Trace's hand and held tight.

Trace's gaze-not as bright, and that dimness terrified her-found Skye's. "Get her...out," he rasped to Alex. "He could...be here still..."

She wasn't leaving him. Alex tried to pull Skye away, but she just held tighter to Trace. "I'm not leaving you."

Cops fanned out, started searching the area.

The EMTs came and loaded Trace onto a gurney. When they put him into the back of an ambulance, Skye jumped right in with him.

So much blood.

"Rode with you...too..." Trace whispered. "After...wreck..." His fingers squeezed hers. "Didn't want to...let you go."

"I'm not letting you go."

The EMT pushed a needle into his arm.

The ambulance jostled, bouncing along the old road. The scream of the siren echoed around her.

The EMT cut away Trace's shirt, and she got a good look at the wound.

Skye stopped breathing. "You lied to me," she whispered to Trace.

"No..."

How was he still talking? Still conscious?

"Never leave...you...this won't stop..."

The EMT connected thin tubes to him. Something started to beep.

"Blood pressure's dropping!" The EMT snapped. Then he pushed Skye back.

Trace's fingers slid from hers.

You lied to me.

Because she'd seen the wound, and she knew things weren't going to be all right for Trace.

The hospital's emergency room doors flew open. The EMTs ran with the gurney, barking out orders.

Skye sprinted to keep up with them.

Doctors and nurses jumped into action, swarming that gurney.

Please, please take care of him.

Trace vanished into the ER. The doors swung shut behind him.

She stood, alone, in that narrow hallway. Staring after him. So lost.

I can't lose him again. She and Trace just found their way back to each other. This wasn't supposed to happen.

"Miss?"

She turned and saw a nurse-a brunette with hazel eyes-gazing sympathetically at her. "Miss, we're going to need you to fill out some paperwork on the patient."

Skye licked lips that were bone dry. "He's going to be okay."

The nurse's face tightened. "There's a waiting room just down the hallway. It's the second door on the left. You can take the papers there."

"He's going to be okay," Skye said again, her voice harder.

The nurse handed her the clipboard. "You may want to notify other family members..."

Trace didn't have other family members. "He only has me," Skye said. Her fingers trembled when she took the clipboard.

She walked toward the waiting room in a daze. Bodies pa.s.sed her in a blur. White lab coats. Green hospital scrubs.

Someone b.u.mped into her, right as she turned toward the waiting room.

"Sorry," a voice rasped.

That rasp...

She looked up, frowning, just as something sharp jabbed into her neck.

A needle. He shoved a needle into my neck.

The man wore a green face mask-the kind that doctors and nurses wore during surgery-but she could see his eyes-see them so perfectly.

His eyes were the last thing that she saw before everything went dark. Skye fell forward and felt his strong arms wrap around her.

"Skye." Saying her name was hard. So much harder than it should have been.

Trace tried to move his arms, but found that they were strapped down. His throat ached, burned, and it sure as h.e.l.l seemed like someone had driven a f.u.c.king stake through his chest.

A stake...or a bullet.

"Take it easy, Weston." A familiar voice advised him. "You just came out of surgery. They took the tube out of your throat three minutes ago. Just slow the h.e.l.l down, okay?"

A tube? That would explain the burn in his throat.

Trace forced his eyes to open. Again, the small act was too d.a.m.n hard. But he opened them, and he locked his gaze on Detective Griffin's. "Skye." He said her name again because she was the only thing that mattered.

But at her name, Alex looked away.

Where is she? She'd been with him in the alley. He remembered her holding onto him. She'd been in the ambulance, too. He'd hated the look of fear in her eyes.

"We're looking for her," Alex said. His voice cracked. Not good. "I've got an APB out now-every cop in the city is searching for her."

Searching for her...

The machines around him began to beep frantically.

Alex hurried toward the side of the bed. "Take it easy. Jesus, man, calm down."

He couldn't be f.u.c.king serious. Trace tried to push up in the bed.

"You're bleeding again! Stop!" Alex pushed the call b.u.t.ton for the nurse, then he locked his hands around Trace's shoulders. The detective shoved him back against the bed. "They just dug a bullet out of you. You can't go racing out of here now!"

Yes, he could. Trace had to get to Skye.

The lines on Alex's face became deeper. "We're going to find her."

How had they lost her? How?

Alex exhaled on a rough sigh. "She was in the hospital. I-I saw the security video just a little while ago. Some guy in a doctor's coat came up to her. He injected her with something that knocked her out. Then the c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d just put her in a wheel chair and pushed her right out the doors."

No.

"No one even stopped him. Didn't ask a single d.a.m.n question. He took her out the emergency exit. There were two guards there, and he just took her."

The machines were shrieking now.

Two nurses ran into the room. The male nurse demanded, "What are you doing to the patient?"

The other nurse-female, a redhead-hurried toward the bed. When she got close enough, Trace grabbed her wrist. "Get me...out..."

"No, no, sir." Her brown eyes became saucer sized. "You can't leave!"

The male nurse pulled out a needle and added something to Trace's IV bag. "This will help calm you down."

No. He didn't need to be calm. I need Skye.

"Take it easy," the redhead told him. "You have to rest and recover."

Resting was the last thing he needed to do. He had to get out there and find Skye. "Doc...tor..."

"The doctor will come to see you soon," the redhead rea.s.sured him as Trace's fingers slid lifelessly away from her wrist. He could feel the cold touch of the drugs slipping through his veins. "Sleep..." The nurse told him.

I can't sleep. Skye needs me.

"We'll find her," Alex told him, but the cop's voice seemed far away now. "Every cop in the city has her photo. She's not just going to vanish..."