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Her face showed every ounce of what she was feeling right then.
“I love you, too,” I told her.
Then I pushed ahead of her, past the cans, and tunneled underneath the RV to the narrow door that was on the outside of the RV. It was a passageway that allowed you to get food out of the kitchen without actually going all the way into the kitchen.
It was a genius thing to put in, and right now, I was thanking my lucky stars that it was there.
I was thanking everything else when I pushed the door all the way open and I didn’t get a bullet to the face for my troubles.
I continued to crawl using my elbows, then fell head first onto the ground and stayed there, silently, as I listened to my surroundings.
Nothing.
Whoever had shot me was camped out on the other side of the RV, and as I looked at the fire lighting up the night sky, I realized that the fire wasn’t only delegated to the RV. My house was on fire, too.
I leaned upward, doing an ab curl, and whispered into the small space. “Come out, baby.”
She did moments later, but I didn’t let her hit the ground like I did.
Despite my screaming shoulder, which I could feel blood dripping down at a fast clip, I hauled her to her feet.
“We’re gonna run that way.” I pointed to the woods. “I don’t have a phone…”
She held hers up. “I do.”
I nodded once. “We’re going to the woods.”
And we did, going as far into the woods as we could seeing as the farther we got from the flames, the less we could see.
“Call 9-1-1,” I ordered. “Tell them the address, then…”
More gunshots filled the air, and seconds later, I heard a man’s voice saying, “Put your hands in the air.”
Raised voices. More yells.
Then, one more gunshot.
Silence.
I looked over at Turner, whose face was illuminated by the phone screen, and said, “Easton.”
Then I passed out.
***
I woke up as I was jostled.
My eyes peeled open, and I glanced at the white walls that surrounded me.
I was in an ambulance.
I could hear Turner’s reassuring voice as she spoke to someone explaining what happened, and I turned my head in the direction that I heard her voice.
She was sitting on the bench seat next to my side, with Easton nodding his head as he listened to her.
“I figured something out,” he answered her question that I must’ve missed. “I remembered Castiel talking about a man that he always saw around you. I inputted his description into a few of the videos that we had from around town and then ran his face through the system. Facial recognition software put him as a Craig Minns.”
I closed my eyes as a poke at my shoulder had me seeing stars.
“Craig Minns that has a hotel room in town. Craig Minns that rented a slip at the campgrounds, though far away from where he was always seen next to you,” Easton continued. “Craig Minns who, from what I found out last night, is responsible for hiring you for your latest subtitle for your, erm, work you were just working on. The comedic one?”
I heard Turner’s husky laugh, and it made me smile.
“I’m thinking that when I get into the man’s computer, he’ll also be linked to the Craig Matthews that has been linked to the girls he meets in private chats and then terrorizes them for months before killing them,” Easton said quietly.
And it all started to make sense.
All of it.
Except for the part where he found Turner.
“Why Turner?” I questioned.
Opening my eyes, it was to find both of them staring at me with a look of relief.
“I don’t know,” he murmured. “But I plan to find out. Just have to do a little paperwork for shooting a guy in the head first.”
I found myself grinning.
“Never know all of it now, though,” I pointed out.
Easton shrugged.
“I like my melon just the way it is.” He shrugged. “He was pointing a rifle at my forehead. It was him or me, and I’ll always choose me.”
I liked him.
“Thanks, man.”
Then the medic at my side pressed gauze to my wound, and I felt my face leech of heat as agony shot through me.
Everything else they said was lost on me as I tried to work through the nausea.
Then Turner’s hand squeezed mine, and everything was just a little bit better.Chapter 21I’m sorry I’m so cranky. I’m just in my terrible 30s right now.
-Castiel’s secret thoughts
Castiel
Hours later, after our hospital visit and subsequent treatment for minor burns, smoke inhalation, and a broken arm as well as gunshot wound for me, and finally boarding of a very pissed off cat, we were laying in a bed at Liner’s house.
Liner had arrived at the hospital late, a pissed off expression written all over his face, and no excuse as to why he was late. Only worry written on his face.
