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Declan’s hand locked around his gun wrist.
I moved right. Gun up. No shot.
Declan.
Wade. Declan again.
I could hear my own breathing coming too fast, breaking at the edges like I was already crying. My sights stayed up anyway.
Every part of me was screaming shoot him, and Declan’s body kept crossing the barrel.
They moved too fast, bodies twisted together, Wade always half-hidden behind him.
“Chief, move!”
Declan couldn’t.
He was trying to tear the gun out of Wade’s hand.
A shot exploded inside my bedroom. The sound flattened everything.
Declan jerked.
No.
His right leg folded. Blood appeared almost instantly high on the outside of his thigh.
Something tore out of me, too raw to be a word. My hands went numb around the gun.
My worst nightmare had walked out of my wall and put a bullet in the person I loved because he was standing between us.
“No.”
Somewhere beneath the ringing in my ears, my radio crackled.
Dad. “Chief, status.”
He caught himself against the dresser.
Wade shoved him. Declan came back anyway.
Of course he did.
He drove into Wade with one functioning leg and both hands, caught him around the middle and slammed him into the wall.
The radio crackled beneath the gunshot ringing in my ears.
Rook’s voice. “Second rifle’s a rig too!”
Someone said something behind him that I couldn’t catch.
Then Rook again, breathless and disbelieving. “Damn. That was some uncanny shooting for a rig.”
Wade hit Declan across the face. Declan barely moved.
He hit him back. Hard. Wade’s head whipped sideways.
For one wild second I thought Chief had him.