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Ben went to his old friend and crouched beside his body. He rolled Gargo to his back and set a hand on his chest. Then Ben bowed his head. Reed went to his father and stood over the scene like a guard.
Outside, moans wafted into the night. At least one Dragon was only injured. Sounded like more than one.
Zach didn’t want to interrupt the grief of his brothers, grief he felt himself, though maybe more muted than others who’d been closer to Gargoyle, so he backed up and, his AK at the ready, slipped carefully outside to secure the scene.
Five Dragons were thoroughly dead. Two, including Wash Duggar, their president, were dying but not gone yet. Zach divested the wounded of their weapons, but he didn’t hurry their dying. Duggar might have useful information, and at any rate, it wasn’t Zach’s call who lived or who died here, now that the battle was over.
He noticed the light on the dark street before he heard the engine. A car was racing toward Duggar’s house and garage. “Coop!” he called. “Car!”
Standing where he was, his AK not aimed but ready to be, he watched that car come and tried to figure what was happening. The Silver Dragons had seven patches. There were seven men strewn across the driveway and the dirt yard, all of them dead or heading that way. So who was in this car—a mid-90s compact by the look of it—and why were they in such a rush?
The car—a Corolla, with the driver’s door a different color than the rest, though with only its headlights providing light it was impossible to tell what colors were involved—bounced onto the dirt and stopped less than ten feet short of the carnage. Though Zach faced the car broadside on the driver’s side, the headlights still made it difficult to see the driver. He aimed anyway, ready to take the shot at his first chance. He heard the squeak of the door opening, and saw a hand grip the edge of the door as the driver got out. That hand had very long, polished fingernails. A woman. What was a woman doing here?
“Zach!” Cooper shouted. “Get to cover!”
“It’s a woman,” he said and dropped his AK out of its aim.
“WASH!” She screamed. “BABY!”
Zach took a punch to the gut and landed on his back in the dirt, and then Cooper was roaring and firing, and there was a high-pitched shriek like from a woman, but that didn’t make any sense. Why would a woman be here? And who’dpunchedhim?
Cooper was yelling “YOU STUPID BITCH, YOU STUPID BITCH!” and firing his Glock over and over.
That car had been trouble, obviously. He tried to stand back up and help, but his legs wouldn’t work. Then he heard Caleb’s voice coming up from behind him. “Easy, Zach, easy. I got you. You’re okay, you’re okay.”
Caleb grabbed Zach under his arms and dragged him back, andfuck, that hurt. Like somebody was stomping on his belly with soccer cleats.
He looked down to see who was stomping on him. The way Caleb was dragging him, his hoodie had ridden up to his chest.
There was a hole in his belly, gushing blood.
Fuck. He’d been shot.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The longest, hardestnight of Lyra’s life was the one just ending.
With dawn breaking, Lyra ran into the reservation medical clinic, her mother at her heels. The clinic was eerily quiet, as if the whole world hadn’t gone upside down all at once.
It started with the calls she’d ignored the day before, from Zach and Pop. By the time she reached out to them both in text, they were already on the road—headed toIdahoon Bulls’ business. She hadn’t even known Pop and Reed had officially become Bulls!
All three of the men in her life had been cagey regarding the reason for the sudden road trip, but Lyra had sensed trouble behind their noncommittal, insufficient ‘explanations.’Just some business to see to, Pop had said.Just some shit to work out, had been Zach’s take. All Reed had said wasbetter ask loverboy.
So: a sudden ride to a state five hundred miles away, without even grabbing their toothbrushes first. A complete refusal to make any reasonable explanation. And then total silence forhours. The whole rest of the day, until after ten o’clock that night.
