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It scratched at his neck and face, and the smell of freshly broken earth filled his lungs as he hit the ground. North lay half on top of him. Brey was still shouting, but his voice sounded closer. Shaw twisted. North growled in protest, but let Shaw slide out from under him.
Through the broken line they’d made in the grass, Shaw had a narrow view of the cave’s mouth. Brey appeared there. He was gray in the thin light of the coming storm, but he didn’t appear to have been shot. As he started to step out of the cave, the rock next to his head exploded.
Brey screamed and fell back, arm raised to shield his face, and he disappeared inside the cave again. Wrong. That was Shaw’s first thought. That shot had been wrong, it had been impossible because Welch was on the other side of the cave and there was no way he could have fired a shot at that angle—
“Sniper,” North said into Shaw’s ear. His free hand gripped Shaw’s nape, and the gesture was half-possessive and half-reassuring. “Someone’s out there, and they’re trying to clean house.”
Shaw pictured the man in black, the one who had followed Gid into Adam Ezell’s house. The one who had almost killed Jem and Theo. And, the night before, North.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” North said. Another shot rang out. It whizzed through the grass, and Shaw flinched. He felt North’s body contract next to him, and then, more a noise in his chest than a word, North’s single “Fuck.” They both lay still for a moment, and then North said, “We’re sitting ducks out here. The angle of that shot—”
“He’s in a tree. He can see us.”
“He can’t see us, or we’d be dead, but he doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out where we are and get a lucky shot. Shit, shit, shit!”
Shaw’s window through the grass showed him the dark of the cave. “If we can get—”
“Yeah,” North said. “On the count of three.”
Horror came on like a lightbulb inside Shaw. “North, don’t you dare—”
“One.”
“—try to stay behind—”
“Two.”
“—I’m serious—”
“Thr—”
Before North could finish the word, though, a familiar voice shouted, “Hey! Hey, up here!”
They both looked up.
At the top of the hill, Auggie was backlit against the purple bellies of the clouds.
“Auggie,” Shaw screamed, “run!”
Maybe it was because he was young, but Auggie had good reflexes. He turned and ran, and at the same moment, a spray of gunfire tore open the hillside, throwing up clumps of earth where Auggie had stood a moment before.
North sprang to his feet, and Shaw copied him, the Springfield heavy and solid in his hand. No muzzle flashes. Nothing to give the shooter away except—
A branch that hung too low in an old, leafed-out oak.
Shaw fired, and North must have seen the same incongruity, because he fired too. Or maybe he was just following Shaw’s line. It didn’t really matter; their shots were, at best, a distraction. At that distance, anything he hit with the Springfield would be pure luck. Even as Shaw had the thought, North grabbed his arm, and together, they stumbled backward toward the mouth of the cave.
Cool air on fevered cheeks. The taste of damp stone, the stink of sulfur, the hot, grainy smoke of gunfire. His back pressing into the rough surface of the cave wall. Darkness tightened around them, and the low, flat light of the coming storm made a tarnished coin in the mouth of the cave. Next to him, North panted, hands unsteady as he shifted them around the CZ.
No more shots came.
Slowly, Shaw’s eyes adjusted to the gloom.
No Welch.
No Brey.
“I am going to kiss that little shit right on the mouth,” North said as he sagged against the stone. One arm looped around Shaw’s neck; North was all sweaty, but Shaw decided to let that pass without comment. This time. But only because he was having a hard time finding his words. Everything that had happened was now happening again, happening faster, all the loose threads of potential catastrophes spinning off it. “And then I’m going to fucking murder him,” North added. He bumped heads with Shaw, and he made shushing noises and held him closer until they heard the sirens.
