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Cracks of lightning highlight the figure on the other side of the window seconds before glass shatters, shards flying everywhere.
I duck and drop to my knees, but I’m not fast enough and catch a shard across the cheek.
Rounds of bullets zing through the air. Multiple tings of empty shell casings hit hardwood flooring.
And then all hell breaks loose overtop my head.
My thumping heart is so loud in my ears I can’t hear what Austin is yelling back at us until it’s too late. Flashes of lightning show him pinned down by the door.
I hear rather than see multiple rounds ping off the hardwood walls of the cabin in his direction.
But my focus is dragged off the flying bullets when the front door explodes inward. If the glass was bad, the splinters of wood flying our way are worse.
The small back of the couch isn’t enough to cover me, and I see the second a red dot lasers through the window, bounces around a few seconds before zeroing in on me.
Oh shit.
It happens so fast. Two hundred pounds of muscle tackles me to the floor. The gun in my hands falls to the side and instinct pulls my arms around Boone as I tuck my head into his chest. When the firing stops, I pull my hands back to find them coated in warm sticky liquid.
The little air I have in my lungs from the dive to the floor whooshes from my lungs.
“Boone.” My hands are shaking as I try to dislodge him, but he’s dead weight on top of me and not responding. I can’t breathe from the vise of fear squeezing my chest.Oh God, please don’t let this be the end.
“Boone,” I scream and this time I’m able to move him just enough to where I can squeeze out from under him.
I scramble to my knees, keeping as low as I can while I pat around his back to find the wound. He’s face down and in such low light I can’t assess how bad it is. Austin and Landry are fanned out in lethal Ranger mode. The bullets have stopped, but I can’t spend precious time wondering if they are okay when I know Boone is wounded and bleeding in front of me.
I reach into his pocket, take out his phone and hit 911. Thiscannotbe happening. Not again.
I pat around the floor, searching for something—anything—to press onto the wound for the bleeding. I hit cloth and yank to the sound of dishes clattering to the floor.
I press the phone between my shoulder and ear, pushing the blanket against the bullet hole in Boone’s shoulder. I fill in the operator. “Please,pleasehurry, it’s bad. I can’t get the blood to stop.”
My eyes have adjusted to the dark, and I spot Austin near the front of the cabin. A blast from the end of his gun and I see one intruder drop like a stone, taking my stomach along for the ride. Adrenaline rushes through my veins and jacks my heart against my chest.
Why is this happening? My brain can’t make sense of it all.
“Get the fuck down, woman!”
I don’t realize I’m trying for a better look until Austin pulls me behind him. He covers his friend and me.
“Is he breathing?”
“Yes, yes, he’s still breathing. He’s been shot and it looks like he took a hit to the head. He’s bleeding. That’s all I can make out. But how, Austin? How did they find us?” I ask.
Austin is too busy to acknowledge my question. Gun aimed, he tracks a moving shadow by the now wide-open window, takes aim and pulls the trigger.
The sound echoes off the walls with a certain finality.
One shot. One kill.
I’d heard those words from them before in backroom talk amongst themselves and they come back to me now with new meaning.
I stay silent as the shards of wood and glass settle. I’m still hunched over Boone and something tells me it’s more than the bullet wound keeping him unconscious.
Landry reloads while Austin takes aim in the direction of heavy footfalls coming up the path. I search for the gun I dropped and the second I feel the cold metal, I wrap my fingers around the handle. In that second I’m reminded just how easy it is to leave this earth.
“Don’t shoot!”
