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my available brainpower to wonder how in the hell I’d gotten here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have any answer, other than to blame the gun . . . oh, and the knife, too.

Chapter Fifteen

Talbot

I don’t think Tammy realized how bad it was until after we finished eating and Maggie sat us down in the family room and pulled out her laptop.

She brought up screen after screen, too many articles to ever read, blog posts galore, photos and YouTube videos, Instagram stories and tweets. There was even an entire thread on TikTok that had gone viral. The attack had been covered in everything from gossip sheets to all those social media influencers to local news to national papers. It was, in a word, everywhere.

Tammy grew quieter with each page that came up, with the news clips and the comments that followed.

The only good thing was that the paparazzi had caught everything.

The older man, his face lined and drawn, his eyes huge and sunken. I had to admit he looked frighteningly crazed on the videos, much more so than I’d been able to comprehend the night before with everything moving so fast. They showed the man lunging toward us, the knife held above his head.

They’d caught Tammy’s warning to stop.

They’d caught the first shot and then him getting back up again, where they’d also filmed the rest of it. Tammy firing twice more, kicking the knife away, and then immediately trying to save the man.

All with blood pouring down her arm because he’d cut her with that knife, and in that sexy black dress.

She was fucking amazing.

She was a fucking superhero.

And right now, people seemed to realize it.

But sooner or later, that tide would turn, someone would find something to exploit or frown upon or to rally the forces against her. I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.

I needed Maggie to make sure that didn’t happen.

“Right now,” my publicist was saying, “they haven’t identified you, yet. That’s a good thing. That gives us time to figure out how we want to play this. You’ll want to release a statement soon, though, otherwise the frenzy will continue. We can consult with your lawyer”—Maggie’s gaze came to mine, and I nodded, assuring her that Tammy would have access to any of my resources I could supply her with—“and figure out what we can say—”

“No.”

I blinked, glanced at Tammy, whose skin had gone ashen.

“No, I don’t want a statement,” she whispered. “I want to forget that ever happened. I want to just go back to my life and—” Her voice broke as she closed the laptop. “This isn’t right. I-I hurt someone. He might die, and those people out there”—she threw an arm out in the direction of the front gate—“they don’t even care. They’re feeding on it, consuming it like it’s some funny meme or a hair dyeing video. And a man is fighting for his life in the hospital because I shot him.” A beat, her angry stare almost a physical lash as it landed on me. “And you’re part of it. Both of you.”

Words escaped me.

I didn’t have words that would take that angst away, that would make what she said any less true.

Because she was right.

But being right didn’t negate the fact that we had to do something, and we needed to do it quickly.

I pushed up from the couch, felt the barest blip of hesitation when she shot cold, hazel eyes in my direction, then promptly ignored it. She was upset; she was in pain—if the lines fanning out from the corners of her mouth were any indication—and she was in a new scenario with absolutely no clue how to proceed.

Anyone would be feeling adrift and angry and uncertain.

So, I ignored that blip of wavering and just took her in my arms.

“You’re right,” I said, finding the words much easier with her close, her head tucked beneath my chin, the strands of her hair, still damp from the shower, brushing along my arm. “Of course, you’re right. This whole situation is fucked. People wanted to sell every consumable portion, to push papers and views and ads and merch, but none of that changes the fact that I would have very likely been seriously injured last night, if not for you.” I cupped her jaw, tilted her head back. “I might have died, if not for you.”

Her lips parted. “I’m sure—”

“Did it seem like any of them were coming to my aid last night?”

“There was that one girl—”

“One,” I said. “Yeah, and what good would that have done me? Her standing on the opposite side of the road, camera poised as a man ran at me with a knife.” I stroked my thumb back and forth across her cheek. “You saved me, and besides protecting you from this media storm, that’s the only thing that matters.”

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because no one has ever done that for me before.”

Her brows pulled together. “What do you mean?”

“My parents were drug addicts, Pretty Eyes. They were sick and so wrapped up in their addictions that they couldn’t think of anything but getting their next fix.” I shrugged, not to dismiss it, exactly, since it was my experience, but because . . . that had been my experience. I was used to it. I couldn’t say that it wasn’t completely painless, because, fuck, it did hurt sometimes. But I’d long ago learned that it was over. They had both been gone for a long time. My mom had OD’d right in front of me, my dad had left me to the system and disappeared. For all I knew, he’d succumbed to the drugs just as my mother had.

That kind of trauma left a hole.

That kind of trauma had left me feeling empty for a long, long time.

Then I’d met Maggie, and she’d filled in a little of that crevice, right along with Pierce and Artie, Eden and Damon, all of them continuing to backfill the emptiness. Now, I wasn’t quite so hollow.

But now, I