Between the Cracks and Burning Doors: Book 2 of The Extraction List Series by Renee N. Meland

swollen shut, and his arm rested in a sling, hanging unnaturally from his shoulder. I took his hand with all the gentleness I could muster.
    “Dom, oh my God, what have they done to you?”
    A twinkle in his eye seemed was all that remained of the man who saved me that night, and every night since. “Cain, good to see you.”
    I whispered. I couldn’t risk someone walking down the hallway and hearing my voice. But there was so much to talk about. “Keegan did this to you, didn’t he?”
    Dom’s words came slowly, as if each syllable pushed against his broken ribs. “They told me…to warn you…I wouldn’t have risked…you coming otherwise.” Pain made his face stiffen.
    “Don’t try to talk, save your strength.”
    He shook his head. “No, Cain, I don’t know what they want from you but you’re in terrible danger. They said…give up…the girl?”
    I sighed. “I can’t.”
    He used all his strength to squeeze my hand. “I don’t know who this girl is…but they’re dangerous…they did this to me…all of them at once. I tried to stop…but they just kept coming.”
    I felt my limbs start to tremble. I imagined a mass of men surrounding the man who had been there for me when I needed it most. They would have circled around him, tighter and tighter until oxygen itself would have had to fight its way in. My skin flushed hot. “I’m in trouble, Dom.”
    He looked me straight in the eyes, and a little smile snuck onto the corner of his mouth. “Aren’t we all?”
    Dom couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, so as soon as I heard him breathing steadily, I pulled his blanket up tighter around him and slipped out of the hospital. Honestly, it worried me that I could have gotten in and out so easily. If I could, maybe Keegan could too.
     
    I had just rounded the corner where the church comes into view when I heard a woman’s voice. Not the deep, silky voice of a woman who had aged into adulthood, but the high, bird-like voice of a young girl.
    She was screaming.
    I ran toward the alley that had changed my life so many months ago. But this time, it wasn’t me who was cowering between the brick and dirt: it was a young woman, barely bigger than Nick.
    I got there just as a man with a beard and thick arms slammed her head against the wall, and I watched her slip limply into the dirt and garbage at her feet. His hand enveloped her skull; she hadn’t had a prayer of escaping him on her own.
    The knives that I carried frightened me. Or maybe I scared myself. Each time they made an appearance, it seemed easier, inevitable, like they were gradually becoming less constrained with questions and quandaries.
    The night I found her was the quickest draw of all.
    The blades seemed to leave their holsters and enter his abdomen in one fluid motion, stopping only when steel met bone. The other knife swept across his throat, and when he landed on the ground, he splashed into a thick, wet puddle of rainwater and God knows what else. His vacant and still face pointed toward the sky, dead and climbing toward the stars.
    I checked her pulse before I lifted her into my arms. She was out cold, but still breathing. Looking around, I ran as fast as I could toward the church door.
    Nick saw me coming. I worried about his propensity to stare out the window. He was too much like me, but that night I was grateful for it. As soon as he opened the door, the rest of the children scurried down the stairs to see what I’d brought them. “Who is she?” Nick asked as he practically pushed me up the stairs to the apartment.
    “I don’t know.”
    I laid her down gently on top of the bed while Nick took off her shoes. When he was done, I threw the blankets over her, and stuck a bandage on her forehead where it had hit the wall. I didn’t even realize until I was done that the other children had been rustling through the kitchen. Alexis thrust me a plate with a turkey sandwich on it and Felix proudly handed me a glass of water. “For