"Any chance - " Wrath lurched in the other direction and coughed some more. "You can slow. . . this bus down?"
Tohr looked in the rearview mirror. He'd kept the partition open so he could keep an eye on the king, and in the glow from the dashboard, Wrath was white as a sheet. Except for where the blood stained the skin of his throat. That was red as a cherry.
"No slowing down - sorry. "
If luck was on their side, the Brotherhood was keeping the Band of Bastards fully occupied at the house, but who the fuck knew. And he and Wrath were on the wrong side of the Hudson River with a good twenty minutes of driving in front of them.
And no backup.
And Wrath. . . shit, he really didn't look good.
"How you doing?" Tohr called out again.
There was a longer pause at that point. Too long.
Gritting his teeth, he triangulated the distance to Havers's clinic. Fuck, it was nearly equidistant - so gunning for that facility in the hopes of finding somebody, anybody with medical training wasn't going to save much time.
From out of nowhere, Lassiter appeared in the passenger seat - right out of thin air.
"You can put your gun down," the angel said dryly.
Shit, he'd pulled his heat on the guy.
"I'll take the wheel," Lassiter ordered. "You deal with him. "
Tohr was out of that seat belt and doing the driver shuffle in a heartbeat, and as the angel took over, it was clear the guy was fully armed. Nice touch. "Thanks, man. "
"No problem. And here, let me shed some light on the subject. "
The angel began to glow, but only toward the back. And. . . goddamn. . . when Tohr stepped through the partition, what he saw in the golden illumination was death on four hooves coming for the king: Wrath's breathing was shallow and coming in puffs, his neck cords straining with the effort it was taking him to get oxygen down into his lungs.
That gunshot in the neck was compromising the airway above the Adam's apple. Hopefully it was just swelling; worst case, he was bleeding from an artery and drowning in his own blood.
"How far from the bridge," he barked out to Lassiter.
"I can see it. "
Wrath was running out of time. "Don't slow down. For anything. "
"Got it. "
Tohr knelt beside the king and ripped off his own leather jacket. "I'm going to see if I can help you, my brother - "
The king grabbed his arm. "Don't. . . get. . . panties. . . in a wad. "
"I'm not wearing any, my lord. " And he was not being paranoid about the danger they were facing. If the king didn't get some help with the breathing thing, he was going to die before anyone addressed whatever else was wrong.
Snapping into action, he tore open the king's coat, stripped off the front of the Kevlar vest - and was only mildly reassured to find nothing doing on that big chest. The problem was the neck wound, and yup, closer inspection suggested the bullet was lodged in there somewhere. Christ only knew precisely what was wrong. But he was pretty sure that if he could open up an air access point below the injury, they might have a fighting chance.
"Wrath, I gotta get you breathing. And please, for the love of your shellan, don't fight me about the trouble you're in. I need you to work with me, not against me. "
The king fumbled with his hand at his face, eventually finding his wraparounds and shoving them out of the way. As those incredibly beautiful, bright green eyes locked on Tohr's own, it was as if they worked.
"Tohr? Tohr - " Clicking, desperate clicking as the king tried to draw breath. "Where. . . you?"
Tohr captured that flapping palm and squeezed it hard. "I'm right here. You're going to let me help you breathe, okay? Nod for me, my brother. "
When the king did, Tohr shouted up to Lassiter, "Keep it real steady up there until I say so. "