Page 90 of Sheltered

Placing my fingers on her throat, I said, “Her pulse is weak. It’s there, but barely. Grab me towels from the back. Did someone call for an ambulance?”

“We called them on the way,” Huck informed me.

As Forrest and I shifted Harlow’s body, Greyson returned with a bunch of towels.

I heard the sirens in the distance as Forrest took some towels and worked on applying pressure to the wound on her leg. My focus was on staunching the blood pouring from the side of her head.

“Harlow, can you hear me?” I asked. “Open your eyes for me, baby.”

She didn’t.

Not immediately, anyway.

But by some miracle, there’d been another hint of life beyond that weak pulse. She moaned.

“Harlow,” I called again.

Her eyes barely fluttered open.

“You’re going to be okay, baby. We’ve got the ambulance on the way. You just have to hang on,” I pleaded with her.

Harlow’s lips parted. “A woman,” she whispered.

My body froze. “A woman did this to you?”

“Laura,” she rasped, fighting to get out that single word. As her eyes drifted shut again, she got out one final word. “Atlantico.”

My head snapped up, my eyes going to Forrest.

He heard what she said, looked up at Huck and Greyson and said, “Did you get that?”

“No. What did she say?”

“Laura Atlantico,” he informed them.

My eyes darted around, taking Harlow in once more to make sure we hadn’t missed any gunshot wounds, and I felt something inside me snap.

I went numb.

There was so much blood. Harlow’s blood.

Just as the paramedics pulled up outside the salon, I ordered, “Call Royce. He knows this case inside and out. Tell him what Harlow said. And tell him that if he doesn’t find this woman and whoever is working for her by the time I know Harlow’s status at the hospital, I’m going to find her and kill her myself.”

The next thing I knew, Forrest was rattling information off about Harlow’s injuries to the paramedics. I was in a state of shock, filled with despair.

All I could do was look down at my beautiful girl, the woman who’d changed my life. Fear consumed me, and I felt as though I was in a daze.

If she didn’t make it, I’d never survive this. I’d never be the same.

Forrest had to eventually pull me away from Harlow, so the paramedics could do what they needed to do for her and get her ready to be transported to the hospital. I looked on in horror.

And the moment they began wheeling her out on the stretcher, Forrest urged me forward and placed a phone in my hand.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s hers,” he said. “The doctors are only going to give information to her family. You need to call them.”

Fuck.