Page 43 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Another bullet tore into the metal above them, close enough that grit rained over their heads.

“That’s it,” Deacon growled.

He angled himself toward the nearest hole punched through the shattered window, found the sliver of open sky beyond it, and took aim. Not ideal, far from clean, but he didn’t need perfect.

He just needed pressure.

He squeezed off two controlled shots. The sound inside the cab was a concussion, bouncing off steel and glass, rattling his teeth. Jessa flinched but recovered instantly, shifting to another angle and firing through the second hole.

The SUV filled with the thunder of overlapping gunfire—his weapon, hers, the echo slamming around them in tight metallic waves.

Deacon fired again. And again. Each shot kicked pain through his ribs, but he pushed past it, muscles shaking as he realigned the muzzle through the warped gap.

Jessa matched him shot for shot, her jaw set, her expression carved from pure determination.

Outside, the shooter’s barrage stuttered. Then stopped. Silence fell fast and heavy. Too fast.

Deacon held his breath, weapon still leveled through the jagged opening. His ears rang from the enclosed blasts, a high whine that blurred the edges of sound. He blinked hard, trying to filter out the distortion, to catch any hint of movement from the ridge.

Nothing.

“Think we hit him?” Jessa whispered, lowering her weapon just enough to breathe.

“No.” Deacon didn’t let himself believe that, not without personally seeing the body.

Deacon’s pulse thudded deep and hard, each beat syncing with the throbbing pain in his side. He steadied himself, eyes locked on the fractured view.

The bastard out there had stopped firing.

Which meant he was changing tactics.

And that was almost always worse.

The ringing in Deacon’s ears finally gave way to something else, faint at first, then swelling into a rising wail.

Sirens.

He lifted his head just enough to peer through the intact rear window. Blue and red lights strobed across the dusty stretch of road, bouncing off mesquite and fence posts like frantic lightning. His deputies were still a ways back, holding position like he’d ordered, but their presence cut through the suffocating silence the shooter had left behind.

Jessa kept her grip firm on her weapon. “They’re close.”

“Close enough he’ll know they’re here,” Deacon said.

But the shooter didn’t fire again. No more sharp cracks rolling across the ridge. No more punches of impact against the SUV. Just the throb of emergency lights and the distant churn of engines.

Deacon waited a beat. Two. Listening. Watching.

When nothing came, he pushed up a little higher, bracing himself against the seat as his side screamed in protest. He ignored the pain and angled his line of sight toward the nearest bullet hole in the shattered window.

Jessa steadied the glass for him, holding back dangling fragments.

“Careful,” she murmured.

He leaned in and looked through the jagged opening toward the trio of live oaks on the ridge. Wind rippled the leaves, and dust drifted across the ground in lazy, swirling patterns. The branches swayed—but no figure crouched between them now.

No flash of a rifle. No masked shooter. No hint of motion except the land settling into itself again.

Deacon shifted to the second hole, checking another angle. Nothing.