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Locking eyes with the vile bastard, I parted my lips, ready to tell him to go fuck a cactus, when a noise somewhere close jerked Todd’s attention away from me. The gun shifted, the barrel now pointing right beside my ear.
And I knew it then. In that split second, I had to decide.
It was now or never.
I could either die without a fight or go down swinging.
Summoning all the energy I could muster, fighting through the pain of every movement, I raised the hand closest to the gun and wrapped my hand around the grip. I’d never shot a gun before, maybe held one once or twice. But it wasn’t that difficult to figure out, though I hoped the gun didn’t have some kind of safety feature I didn’t know about.
Todd’s face snapped to mine the moment our skin touched.
But that distraction was his mistake.
Wrenching his hand around, pointing the barrel away from me, I stuck three fingers against the trigger and pulled. The force knocked my hand away, the boom lasting a moment before a high-pitched ringing overtook all sounds.
Todd’s face contorted into one of rage, then pain, mouth gaping in what I assumed was a roar since I couldn’t hear him. He tumbled to the side, gun still clutched in one hand while the other clamped over his thigh, though I couldn’t see what I hit because of the shadows and his dark suit.
Meeting his blazing glare, I grinned like a feral animal. His lips parted, but bright lights cut through the dark, flashing all around us in red, blue, and white. He broke off our stare to snarl at the lights before turning back to me with hate and violence written across his blood-splattered face.
In slow motion, the hand holding the gun rose from the ground, the lights shimmering off the metal with the slight shake, until it pointed at my chest. I flinched, anticipating soul-shattering pain the moment the bullet he was about to fire pierced my skin and ripped through my body.
But I kept waiting, muscles coiled with tension. Instead, his head snapped back, almost bending so far it touched his spine, while holes erupted along his chest, blood spraying with each new one before he crumpled to the ground beside me.
I blinked at his face, the empty eyes that seemed to stare right at me. Then I opened my mouth and screamed, the sound ripping along my throat even though I couldn’t hear it through the ringing in my ears.
The ground beneath me vibrated as if a herd of elephants raced nearby. Someone stumbled on my other side, falling to the ground beside my head, turning my attention from the dead man.
“Trap,” I rasped.
“Shh, sweetheart, don’t speak. The ambulance is here. Everything will be okay.” But the fear and panic clear on his face said he was lying. Something was very, very wrong. And somehow I knew it wasn’t about me.
A whimper tickled along my raw throat as I attempted to push off the ground, failing as my palms slipped on the damp grass. “Shade?”
Trap’s gaze slid to somewhere over my shoulder, eyes glistening. “You’ll be okay, sweetheart.”
My heart raced as his words registered. He didn’t answer my question.
“No. No,” I pleaded. “Shade! Shade!”
A single tear leaked down Trap’s blistered cheek.
The spike in panic sent my thoughts whirling, my body and mind pushed to the max of what it could take in such a short period. I saw the encroaching darkness slither in from the corners of my eyes, the piercing ringing in my ears slowly fading as I finally succumbed to the need for a reprieve.
TWENTY-FOUR
TRAP
Tubes and cords flowed over the bedrail, attaching to annoying machines and clear bags. Outside the hospital room, nurses and doctors rushed around, laughing and talking to each other as if this were just another day for them.
Which I guess it was.
But not for me.
I shifted forward, face pulling in a grimace at the soreness in my back, and dangled both hands between my spread thighs. One sported two splints, keeping my middle and ring fingers straight to help heal the broken bones, and the other was injury free.
Broken fingers, strained back, whiplash, and burns from the airbag were my only injuries.
I got off lucky, not like my best friend.
