Page 69 of Peace Under Fire

Without a word, the two men turned, heading off at a ground-eating lope.

Squish’s chest tightened. Something had happened. Crusher had sent for the vehicles, which meant someone wasn’t walking out. He scanned the room. He didn’t see Crusher, but he’d heard him speak earlier. Grumpy, however… Fuck, he didn’t see his buddy anywhere.

“JoAnn!” Mandy sounded horrified. “What have you done?”

A slight, short woman with spiky pink hair was huddled against the far wall between a bank of mirrors. Two metal lockers, doors open, lay sprawled at her feet.

Confusion flickered across the woman’s face. “I protected myself. They aren’t going to take me too.”

What had she done? He had a sinking feeling he knew who she’d done it to.

“These aren’t the same men who attacked you earlier and took our sisters. They came to help you, not hurt you. They’re with me, not the cockroaches,” Mandy said, her voice rising.

Squish’s mind flashed back to Mandy’s warning. JoAnn was the one who could heal or kill with a touch. Was that what had happened? Had she touched Grumpy? Were Crusher and Mandy performing CPR, trying to get his heart going again?

“Don’t pull it out,” Crusher said.

Don’t pull it out?

What…the…hell?

“He’ll bleed out if we pull it. They’ll have to remove it at the ER,” Crusher continued. His voice remained cool and calm, but tight. That tightness gave away his concern.

“I’ve got QuikClot in my med kit,” Squish said, shrugging out of his backpack. He pushed his way past Billy, who was hovering over Crusher and Mandy as though he didn’t know what to do.

“Yeah, that ain’t going to help,” Crusher said in that steady, tight voice he’d used earlier.

Squish glanced down, his throat closing when he got a good look at the situation on the floor. Grumpy was flat on his back, feet toward Mandy’s sister, his head toward Billy.

The steel tines from a pitchfork stuck out of his chest in the general area above his heart and pericardium. The wooden handle jutted upward, vibrating slightly with each ragged breath Grumpy took. Blood was seeping out around the edges of the tines and spreading across his vest—his fucking vest—which those tines should not have been able to penetrate.

Crusher was right, though. QuikClot wouldn’t help. Those spikes were a good foot long and buried deep. The powder wouldn’t penetrate deeply enough to stop the interior bleeding.

He studied the slight, stick-thin figure across the room. Her t-shirt and jeans hung loosely on her reedy frame. She barely looked strong enough to lift that damn pitchfork.

Grumpy was wearing a ballistics vest, for Christ sakes, which was meant to stop bullets. Bullets had a fuck-ton more punch behind them than this woman’s muscles. Those damn pitchfork tines shouldn’t have been able to penetrate the vest at all, let alone all the way through. Yet they’d pierced the vest so deeply, the matte black fabric was within an inch of where the spikes curved into one spine and merged with the wood handle.

There was no way this should have happened. No fucking way. But it had. And it was.

They’d already pulled Grumpy’s helmet off. Crusher was on his knees, one hand on the dude’s left shoulder like he was trying to hold him down. Mandy knelt next to his right shoulder, her hands fluttering. She obviously didn’t know what to do any more than the men hovering above her.

“I blame you for this,” Grumpy said, his voice wheezing. His eyes rolled toward Crusher without his head moving. “You just had to tempt fate, didn’t you? I wouldn’t call this sweet, would you.”

Crusher grunted. “The sister looks like a hard breath could knock her down. Wouldn’t think she’d have the strength to ram a pitchfork through your vest. Hell, that vest is made to catch bullets. A pitchfork shouldn’t even scratch it.”

With another gasping breath, Grumpy’s eyes closed. “Would have been nice to get a heads up about this, Nostradamus. Guess I don’t rate one of your warnings, huh?”

“Just means you’re not gonna die,” Gray said from behind Squish. And while there was certainty in his voice, Squish caught sight of the dude’s face in the mirror. It was full of doubt.

There was good reason for that doubt. Grumpy’s breathing was erratic, and the red tide seeping up the pitchfork spikes and spreading across his chest and onto the concrete floor had doubled in size.

Even at a run—in this snow—it would take Fabio and Ajax at least seven-eight minutes to reach the Land Rovers and another few minutes to drive them back. If Grumpy was still alive when Fabio brought the vehicle in, he wouldn’t survive the trip to the ER. They were out in the boondocks. It would take twenty minutes to get him back to town.

Grumpy didn’t have twenty minutes.

Not even close.

Crusher must have reached the same conclusion. “Squish. Get hold of Tex. Have him arrange a med-flight.”

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