Page 17 of Rescuing Sadie

Her eyes glued to Chase, she held her breath until he took two giant steps and disappeared behind a Jeep. “Oh my God,” she said softly. Her eyes went back to where Jonathan had been hiding behind the car, but he was gone.

“Where’d he go?” she said, more to herself than Rayne.

“There he is,” Rayne said, pointing off to the side. “And Ghost is with him now.”

Sadie looked where her new friend was pointing and saw Chase huddled with Ghost. She hadn’t been asking about Chase, though. She’d been wondering where Jonathan had gone.

Before she could freak about it, Fletch materialized next to them.

“Come on,” he said, motioning toward an idling Highlander SUV nearby.

“Did Ghost call you?” Rayne asked.

Fletch looked at her as if she were insane. “Yeah, Rayne, he did. Now come on, we need to get out of here.”

“What about our groceries?” she asked. “It would suck to get Sadie all the way back home, only for her to realize she has to come back here to get something to eat.”

“Jonathan was by a red car,” Sadie told Fletch, ignoring Rayne’s asinine argument about the food. “Chase didn’t see him, and he got off a shot.”

“Ghost has his back,” Fletch reassured her.

Sadie looked around for Chase for a moment but no longer saw him. She turned to Fletch and nodded. “Okay.”

“He’s going to meet us at the house. I need to get you out of here, Sadie, in case Jonathan decides to go after you next.”

“Are the cops coming?” Rayne asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Fletch told her. “No one seemed to notice the gunshot. He probably has a silencer on his gun.”

“How’s that even possible?” Sadie asked, shaking her head. “I heard it.”

“You were looking right at him when he shot, right?” Fletch asked.

“Yeah.”

“You heard it because you were watching him. Even with all the mass shootings happening lately, people don’t expect something like that here in the middle of the day, in the middle of a Walmart parking lot. And even if they did hear it, they probably thought it was a car backfiring or something. Now come on, we have to get out of here.”

Fletch quickly led them over to the black SUV with tinted windows. Sadie struggled, suddenly not wanting to leave without making sure Chase was all right.

“Sadie, get in,” Fletch told her.

“I want to see Chase,” Sadie told him, putting out a hand to brace herself so she couldn’t be shoved into the backseat.

“He’s fine. Get in,” the man repeated.

“If Emily was shot at and you didn’t know if she was hurt or not, would you leave her to continue on with a mission? Even if I told you she was okay and in the hands of another guy like yourself?”

“Yes,” Fletch said immediately. “If she was with Chase or Ghost or any of my other friends, I’d trust them to get her the fuck away from the situation safely. Get in the damn car, Sadie.”

It finally sank in that she was being ridiculous. Not only that, she was putting Chase and Ghost in danger by hesitating. Possibly Rayne, Fletch, and herself too. Her uncles would kick her ass if she did the same thing to them in the middle of a dangerous situation.

Without another word, she ducked her head and climbed into the backseat.

While she’d been trying to convince Fletch to let her see Chase, Rayne had grabbed their groceries and thrown them into the SUV. Crazy woman.

The second Fletch was behind the wheel, he peeled out of the parking lot as if the hounds of hell were after them.

Rayne put her hand on Sadie’s leg in silent support as they sped through the city back to Fletch’s house.