Page 81 of Peace Under Fire

“What happened? My head feels like shit, all foggy and tingly.” There was a long pause. “Why the hell am I lying back here?”

Squish’s gaze flashed up to the rearview mirror in time to watch Grumpy sit up.

Fabio was sitting up as well—frozen and mute.

“Fuck me,” Squish drawled, the relief a white-hot explosion within him. “You finally decided to join the living. How do you feel?” He paused. “Other than your head.”

Grumpy had described that weird sensation in Squish’s head perfectly. The feeling must have been related to what JoAnn was doing.

“I feel fine. Why the hell am I back here? And why was I sleeping? I don’t sleep on the job.” Confusion thickened his voice.

“We’ll get into that later. Right now, we’re in the middle of a situation, so your questions will have to wait.”

Grumpy turned his head slowly, taking in the backpacks and weapons wedged around him. He looked down and studied the wheeled cart he sat upon. Looking back up, he stared at Fabio with a puzzled expression. “What’s up with him?”

“Dude just had his sense of reality shaken and returned to him upside down,” Squish said. “You missed a metric ton of shit.” He glanced at Mandy, who’d wrapped an arm around her sister and was murmuring soothing nonsense. “She okay?”

“No,” Mandy said. “This is too much for her. We should be safe now, right? She needs to drop the shield.”

Squish peered at the odometer. They’d traveled three miles from the driveway. Was it far enough? Not if the cockroaches had stationed scouts ahead.

In the end it didn’t matter whether they were far enough away or not. With a deep, pained groan, JoAnn’s hand slid from the dashboard. Out of the corner of his eye, Squish saw her slump forward.

“Jo!” Mandy shrieked, wrapping an arm around her sister, and dragging her upright again.

The hazy, thick feeling in his head faded. He took that to mean they’d lost the shield.

“Do we need to get her to a hospital?” he asked, although, he had no idea how safe that would be. The bastards after her might be monitoring the local clinics.

“I don’t know. Would that be safe?” Mandy asked, her arm tight around JoAnn’s shoulders.

“Probably not.” Squish kept his boot on the gas pedal, putting as much distance between them and the compound as he could. There was nothing he could do for the woman anyway, other than getting her as far from the bastards behind them as he possibly could. He sure as hell didn’t have anything in his med kit to combat supernatural overextension.

“Ah, hell—” Grumpy growled.

Squish glanced in the rearview mirror. The dude was sitting up, leaning forward, peering into the front seat with a combination of suspicion and disbelief plastered across his face.

“She fucking healed me, didn’t she?”

CHAPTER 20

“She saved your stupid life—twice,” Mandy tossed over her shoulder at Jacob’s asshole of a friend.

Too bad he’d woken up. While things had been downright terrifying, at least she hadn’t had to put up with his toxic personality. She doubted the fact Jo had saved his life was going to soften him much.

Although in truth, her sister had saved all their lives with this new gift of hers. The realization that her sister had manifested such a powerful ability over the past year filled her with pride and envy.

Her own gift wasn’t just the weakest, it was also the most useless. For years she’d hoped the dreams would turn into something stronger, more impressive—but nope. Just dreams of a man who didn’t give a shit about her.

“My med kit is in the back,” Jacob said, without taking his eyes from the road. “I doubt there’s anything in there that will help her. However, if we take her to the ER, it could put you both in danger. Those cockroaches of yours probably have someone monitoring the clinics.”

Mandy scowled. “They’re not my cockroaches.”

But he was probably right. Now that the cockroaches knew where they lived, they probably were monitoring the clinics and hospitals.

She leaned over to check on Jo again. Her pulse had slowed. Color was pushing out the gray in her face. Her breathing was steadier. Those earlier deep, rasping gasps had disappeared.

All in all, Jo’s condition seemed to be improving.

---