Until You (The Redemption, #1)(16)

And even that brings a smile to my lips, considering how flustered Crew was over the innuendo.

I pick up the letter and toy with its edges as I read it again.

You haven’t been living, Tenny.

This is not my forte—organizing a town event. Not even close.

You’ve been merely existing.

I look at the letter again. At the harsh pink of it—Bobbi Jo’s signature color—and before I can stop myself, I sit down to my computer and type up an email telling her I’d be happy to be on the committee and take part.

I’m sick of being scared. Of living in and scared of every shadow I come across.

I hit send before I can chicken out and delete it.

It’s time to live again.





CHAPTER SIX


Crew




There’s serenity in the chaos.

Paige.

An order in the confusion.

Addy.

Every second is measured in heartbeats. In ragged breaths. In the blink of my eyes to try and process and assess and react.

Fuck.

The room. Smoke weighs down the air and creates some kind of magical art as it swirls and dances through the single sliver of light from the barely closed door across the family room.

My ears ring.

My mind races.

The smell. Metallic mixed with gunpowder. Two scents you never want mixed. One I’ll never forget.

My body shakes as the adrenaline owns me. As it overshadows the pain. The helplessness. The desperation.

I press harder against my lower abdomen just below my vest. The warm stickiness of blood coats my fingers while my other hand aches from its tight grip on my Glock’s trigger.

My lifeline right now.

Gut wounds. Bacteria. Sepsis. Infections.

My mind reels with the things I know, and none of them are fucking good.

Addy.

Paige.

Their laughter.

They need me, goddamn it. Don’t do this to me. They need me.

A noise to my left has me straining to hear more—to place it—in the screaming silence.

I squeeze my eyes shut and grit my teeth to try and breathe through the pain.

I promise I’m coming home to you.

Justin groans from where he’s lying in the middle of the room. No cover. No help.

I can see his feet from my position where I’m slumped against the kitchen wall. My cell phone is across the dingy carpet against the opposing wall. It must have gotten knocked off my hip when I dove for cover. It keeps vibrating.

They’re trying to call me.

Trying to get info on how to get this bastard.

Think, Crew.

Think.

We need to get the fuck out of here.

“Hold on there, buddy. Backup is here. Outside.” Each whispered word is a painful pant. A statement I’m not sure is true.

There’s no flash of red and blue from the light bar coming in through the window.

But I know they’re coming.

I know they must be outside staging to save us. No man left behind.

They have to be.

But Justin’s dying. I’m not far fucking behind.

He groans again. My lungs rattle with each breath, and my pulse pounding in my ears almost drowns the sound out.

We’re fucking trapped in here. Trapped with nowhere to go. A madman behind the closed but splintered bedroom door who has nothing to lose.

He’s already shot two cops.

He’s already going to prison.

Why stop now?

The baby cries again. Somewhere.

I think.

I don’t know.

Am I hallucinating?

No. It’s real.

Is it real?

That’s why I hesitated.

That’s why when Justin stepped forward, when I saw the gun, I hesitated. The fucking baby. I shudder as I relive the image of Justin taking the first barrage of bullets. His body jerking. His barked yelp. The sound of his body thumping as it crumbled to the floor.

“Justin,” I say as quietly as I can to avoid giving our location away. But we’re in his apartment. He shot us. It’s not like there are many places we can hide at this point. “Think of Sheila. She’s going to be so pissed at you if you don’t make it home and finish that bathroom remodel.” I try to engage him. To continue the conversation we had earlier today before everything went to shit. Before my mind becomes so foggy I can’t remember anymore. “You can’t let her be right. You have to pull—”

A slam on the other side of the closed bedroom door on the far side of the room has me jolting in fear, my finger tightening on my trigger.

He’s coming to finish us off.

He’s—

“Crew?”

“Here. I’m here.”

“I don’t want to die.”

Tears burn in my eyes at the blatant fear in my partner’s—my best friend’s—whisper. “You’re not. We’re going to get out of here, and when we do, I’ll let you take me to that shitty taco truck you swear by and—”

“I can’t feel . . .”

“What? You can’t feel what?” I beg him to keep talking to me.

To fight.

To live.

But silence falls again.

I squeeze my eyes shut. The girls fought this morning. I yelled at them. Told them they drove me crazy. I didn’t tell them I loved them. I didn’t say goodbye.