Cruel World(71)

He pulled the trigger.

He didn’t hear the report, but the man went slack, his struggling arm going limp in Quinn’s grasp. The pistol fell to the pavement, spinning once on its grip before falling still. He sat back and slid a few feet away from the truck, looking at the dark hole in the driver’s skull, not wanting to imagine the exit wound that was surely on the opposite side, but imagining it anyway. Then Alice was there. Her lips were moving, but there was no sound, just like the gunshot. She shook him, hard, and all his senses rushed back.

“Are you okay?” she said. Her face was so close to his, her hair tickling his cheek.

“Yes.”

“Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

Alice got him on his feet, and he avoided looking at the driver again. Instead he focused on the woman in the backseat. There was a little blood on her white t-shirt and blue jeans, but there was no way of telling if it was hers or not. She still regarded them with frantic eyes, shifting from Alice to him and back again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Alice asked him again.

“Yeah, pretty—”

She slapped him full across the face.

The blow caught him completely off guard, and his eyes immediately watered, the imprint of her narrow palm like a whip on his cheek.

“You almost got us killed, my son, killed!” she yelled. She was pure fury, vibrating with it, and he took a step away from her.

“I’m sorry, it was the only thing I could think of.”

She opened her mouth to yell again and then closed it, her eyes running over him. The fire went out of them, and her head tilted forward. She still shook, but the anger was gone.

“I know,” she finally managed. He began to move to enfold her in his arms. Something that went against every instinct but was nonetheless powerful. She allowed him to pull her close. He could smell her blood, feel her warmth against him as if he were embracing a hearth. After a moment that could’ve been a lifetime, she stiffened and gently pushed him away. Alice glanced around the empty road as Ty made his way past the front end of the overturned truck.

“Where’s the other one?” Alice asked.

They found him farther down the street in the ditch. He’d landed in a slough of sand runoff. He lay on his back, face to the reaching branches above. In another life, he could’ve been called handsome with his regal nose and strong jaw, but his injuries now rendered him a sculpture of pain. His bald head was slick with blood, and the barest goatee of blond hair was stippled with gore. His ring and pinkie finger were missing from his left hand, their stumps oozing blood over ragged bone. When they approached and stopped at his side, his eyes were the only thing that moved to follow them.

“You sonofabitch,” Alice said. And before Quinn could do anything, she wound back a kick and delivered it to the prone man’s ribs. The solid whump of her foot connecting made Quinn flinch. The man barked a cough and clenched his jaw. As he did, his bloodied lips parted, and Quinn saw that half his upper teeth were missing.

“What the f*ck, you bastard!” Alice tried to kick the man again, but Quinn pulled her back, gently, and released her when she shot him a look.

“He’s dying; leave him be.”

“Then we should help speed up the process,” she said, bringing up her rifle.

A gurgling cough came from the bald man, and it took Quinn a second to realize he was laughing.

“Oh, it’s funny? No, what’s funny is you’re gonna lie here and suffer, you bald f*ck,” Alice said, and punctuated her sentence by spitting on his face.

“Come on,” Quinn said, moving back up to the road where Ty waited. “You okay, buddy?” Quinn asked him as he knelt down to the boy’s level.

“I’m fine. A little scared.”

“Then you’re doing better than I am.”

Ty held his hands in front of his pants and kept moving from side to side. “Mom,” he finally said, and Alice bent beside him. He whispered something to her and she nodded, bringing him to the opposite side of the road. Quinn made his way back to the truck and crouched before the rear window opening. The woman’s eyes were glazed now, and she didn’t look at him when he reached in and touched her shoulder.

“We’re going to get you out now, okay?” he said, but she gave no indication she’d heard him. As carefully as he could, he drew her out through the broken window until she lay on the pavement, her face slack and pale. Alice appeared beside him and glanced down at the woman.