Wolfhunter River (Stillhouse Lake #3)(95)

I don’t know what Mike’s doing and don’t have time to look. I lower my chin and lean in as I explode upward with all the power in my legs, and the bony top of my skull connects with his chin and keeps going. The impact jolts through me like a train coming off the tracks, but it’s worse for him, a stunning hit that travels through bone to slam his brain against the top of his skull. Lights out. I feel his knees buckle.

As he goes down, I feel one of the other guys at my back. I can’t die here. That would be a bitter damn irony, with Gwen thinking . . . no, knowing . . . that I chose Miranda over her at the end. So I charge backward into him. It’s reckless.

It’s also effective. He yells. We both slam to the floor, and I’m lucky: the impact is mostly his. He’s my cushion, and as he squirms and tries to buck me off, my fingertips skim the gun that’s still gripped in his right hand. I grab his wrist and force it down hard. I feel something break in his hand, and he lets out a burst of a yell just as the spasm pulls the trigger, and a bullet goes into his side.

My tunnel vision is fading now, and I take in that Walnut Face is lying unconscious, but the gun’s still next to him; the hipster is the one who’s just inflicted his own wound. His shorter buddy is now leaning against the wall, gasping for breath, and half his shirt is red. I can’t tell where he was shot, but it’s bad. Mike has lunged up off the couch and is on his feet now, though he’s swaying and dripping blood. I only have time to take note of that before Hipster throws me off him in a convulsive thrust, and I topple over on my side.

Hipster’s still got the gun.

Mike draws his leg back in a powerful kick. It connects with the side of Hipster’s head and snaps it sharply to the side—not a killing thing, but it definitely makes the man forget what it was he was doing for a while. As he rolls over and tries woozily to get up, I kick him too—in the wounded side.

He goes down, curled in a fetal position. I toe the fallen gun away from him and slide it under the couch, then go back to Walnut and do the same for his. Mike, unasked, kicks the third gun away. It’s not really necessary; that guy has lost consciousness and has slipped down the wall to a sitting position. He’s left a broad red streak behind him.

We have a second to breathe. Mike sits down on the floor and, despite his bulk, works his handcuffed hands under his butt and under his feet until they’re in front. He searches pockets. Hipster has the handcuff keys, and Mike undoes mine, then his.

The first words out of his mouth when he pulls his gag off are “Motherfuckers.” It’s pure fury. He presses his fingers to Miranda’s throat. It won’t do any good. I could tell him that, but I don’t. Maybe I’m wrong.

I’m not wrong. He eases back with a sigh and shakes his head. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to erase the image from my head, of her worrying about me while the bullet enters her skull. Goddammit. The pain twists and tears inside me, but I have to push it aside.

I try to tell myself that she’s beyond all of this now. All the pain, the fear, the fury. It’s true, but it’s a cold truth with no comfort. “How’d they get you?” I hear myself ask. I shouldn’t sound that normal.

“Spike strip on the road out of town,” Mike said. “Five minutes after we dropped you off. Real efficient and professional. Once they had us covered, I gave up. Figured it might save her life.” He glances toward Miranda, and even though his face is badly swollen, I see the grimness underneath. He falls silent for a second, then forges ahead. “They wanted to know where Ellie White was.”

“Which you didn’t know.”

He shakes his head. “Miranda guessed Gwen would have told you whatever she knew. And she knew you were pretty much our only hope. They’d have gone after Vera Crockett if they could have, but she’s locked up, so . . .”

“She’s not,” I tell him. He stops and looks at me in surprise. “She broke out. More likely they let her go so they could hunt her down and kill her.”

“The cops?”

“Some of them, for sure,” I say. “They’re grid-searching for her right now. Maybe ten minutes until they reach this street. Faster, if somebody in this wasteland called in the shooting.”

He suddenly bends at the waist and coughs. Spits out some blood, and it scares the shit out of me. He waves off my bracing hands. “I’m okay. Had worse. Cut in my mouth, my lungs are okay.”

“There’s an SUV out back,” I tell him, and roll Hipster—who’s still unconscious, but definitely not dead—to grab the keys from his pocket. I leave him on his side and handcuff him with the same bracelets he used on me. He’s bleeding, could be going into shock, but the police will be here soon enough, and I can’t summon up much in the way of sympathy for him. I check the pulse on Walnut, lying by the fireplace.

He’s still breathing, but his skull injury looks bad. I search him and find a set of zip ties in his pocket; I use those to pin his limp arms behind him. I resist the white-hot urge to kick him, and go to put handcuffs on the second henchman, who’s also still breathing, by some miracle. I check all of them for extra handcuff keys and pocket what I find.

Then I stand up and say to Mike, “Time to get the hell out. Get a couple of those—” I’m about to say guns, because he’s closer to them than I am; we slid all three under the couch while our hands were still pinned.