Reaper's Stand(97)

His gun?

Fuck that.

I shot him again, this time in the chest. Another shot, catching his arm. I started knee-walking across the floor, determined to grab that key and get Jessica out. God. He was still alive. His eyes blinked, and he held up a hand, as if he could stop me by sheer force of will. His mouth moved but I couldn’t make out the words through the ringing. Smoke started curling through the air above me, filtering through the air vent. We really, really needed to get out of here.

Time to end this *.

Holding my gun with both hands, I shot him point-blank in the center of his forehead. Blood and brain spattered everything in the room, including me. I gagged, trying not to throw up. I didn’t slow down, though. I couldn’t afford to, not with smoke pouring into the room, half an army waiting to kill us, and Jessica chained to a f*cking toilet with her pants on the floor.

Time to find that key. Too bad it was wedged somewhere under Fatty McDeadf*ck.

His body was heavy and limp, but I managed to roll it toward me long enough to dig through the gore and find the little key that’d cost him his life. Then I was on my feet and unlocking Jessica. She was just standing up when the door burst open again.

I raised the gun, ready to shoot.

Reese.

His eyes widened, taking in everything. My blood-spattered face, Jessica peeking out of the stall … Fatty McDeadf*ck’s spattered brains.

“Holy shit,” he muttered. Huh. Guess my hearing was working again. Yup. More gunfire in the background, along with even louder wailing from the alarm, now that the door was open.

“Hi, Reese,” I said, smiling just a tad too brightly. “I found Jessica.”

Ruger came in behind him, followed by Horse and some bearded stranger I didn’t recognize. Suddenly the bathroom was way too crowded.

“That’s Gerardo Medina,” Beard Man said. “He’s dead … Holy hell. Who shot him?”

“I did,” I snapped, waving my gun for emphasis. They all froze, and I realized waving deadly weapons for emphasis while covered with blood and brain chunks probably wasn’t such a hot idea. This struck me as funny, but I managed not to laugh.

That’s when I realized perhaps I was losing my shit a little.

“Oops. Sorry.”

Reese let out a slow breath.

“Okay, give me the gun, babe,” he said, reaching out for it. I hesitated—what if I needed to defend Jessica again? My thoughts were racing way too fast, I couldn’t think. Reese considered me warily.

“I’m impressed as hell, London. You just killed the number two guy for the Santiago Cartel in the U.S., so job well done. But much as I respect your deadly instincts, I think we’ll all be safer if you hand that gun over.”

“I’m fine keeping it,” I said, narrowing my eyes to focus on his face. Damn. Why was everything moving so fast?

“Tell me right now how much ammunition you have left.”

“Why?”

“Because if you can’t answer the question, you got no business carrying that thing around.”

He made a good point.

I handed over the gun with the barrel pointed down carefully, startled by how hard it was to keep my balance. Then he was lifting me up and throwing me over his shoulder in a firefighter’s carry. He raced out the bathroom door, smoke surrounding us and the roar of guns growing louder. Something whacked my shoulder and my arm went numb.

“Loni!” Jess screamed behind me, and I raised my head to see Horse carrying her, dangling pants and all. Then I heard someone yell “Fuck!” really loud, followed by “Get the hell outta here!”

Reese pelted toward the end of the warehouse as the whole place seemed to burst into flames. Smoke burned my eyes, and I had no idea how he was getting enough air—I certainly wasn’t. Still, we barreled down the row of pallets like a herd of wild horses until I saw Puck waiting by the door we’d used to enter, waving at us frantically.

Then we were through it and out in the night air.

Reese tossed me into the back of a van and jumped on top of me, knocking the breath right out of my body. Horse and Jessica followed, and the vehicle took off, cargo doors swinging wide as we tore down the street. From my crumpled position on the floor, I saw a pillar of flame burst through the top of the warehouse roof. Then Horse caught hold of a tie-down mounted on the van’s wall and leaned out, grabbing the doors and slamming them shut.

There was a giant, roaring whoosh as something blew up, and the entire van rocked violently.

“People have got to stop blowing up buildings at me,” I muttered, trying not to giggle. Something was wrong here … Why wouldn’t my brain work? Felt like I was looking at everything through a film of honey. I tried to push Reese off, but my arm still wouldn’t work.

“I’ll look into it,” Reese muttered back at me.

“You do that.”

He pulled me close and squeezed me, which should’ve made me feel all warm and safe. Instead I didn’t feel anything at all. I knew I should be checking on Jessica, there was something important … but I was just so incredibly tired and weak.

I don’t remember anything after that.

The garbled noises that woke me sounded like someone speaking underwater.

This made sense, because I seemed to be floating. I just wasn’t quite sure how I was floating—or why—but I definitely wasn’t on solid ground.