Page 108 of Toxic

I hit the man with his back toward me so hard he stumbled forward a few steps as he tried to dislodge me. He wasn’t fast enough. Gripping his head between my hands, I wrapped my legs around him to give me a solid base, and twisted as hard as I could, my shoulders bunching with the strain. The snap of his neck sounded so loud to me that I looked around as we dropped to the ground.

I went down with him just in case one of his friends came to the rescue. But no one came. That wasn’t a good sign. It meant they were busy somewhere else.

The shotgun blast split the night like a thunder clap. My teeth gritted together as I surged to my feet. I ran toward the back of the house.

“Stop!”

I halted my forward momentum, looking out of the corner of my eye for the man who had me in his crosshairs. Fuck. There wasn’t time for this. Slowly, I started to turn.

“Don’t fucking move or I’ll-” His high pitched scream was the only thing I needed to know that Eris was helping out again. I turned, swinging my rifle his way. A canine yelp of pain echoed through the darkness right before I pulled the trigger and put three rounds in the shadowy figure’s chest.

Running over, I checked that he was dead before I looked around. “Eris? E-” A tongue flicked out from the side and landed in my mouth. I sputtered. “Fucking gross, Dog,” I told her spitting out the canine contaminated saliva from my mouth. “Don’t fucking do that again,” I told her, pointing my finger right at her nose.

Her little whine of agreement told me she seemed to understand I meant for her not to get hurt again, not about the licking thing. Billie would murder me if her dog got injured out here. But the little bundle of crazy was proving just how useful she was, so I was glad she’d stayed by my side.

Gunfire was coming at a steady stream from the back of the house. I knew I needed to get in there before Pops or Billie was hurt. Shoving to my feet, I made it to the last edge of the house that stood between me and the back door. The night was lighting up from behind the chicken coop and the little shed where Billie stored her bird feed. I didn’t see any shadows lurking between the house and those buildings. I knew all eight of them weren’t hiding behind them. That would be an idiotic move. There were at least a few who were probably creeping around toward thefront, but they weren’t shooting yet, so I needed to take these assholes back here out first.

I’d have to deal with the rest afterward. Running away from the house, I made my way further away from the action so that I could circle around behind the guys hiding behind the coop. There wasn’t a lot of return fire coming from the house, and I knew I had Pops to thank for that. They were only shooting when someone got too close to the house, but didn’t want to end up hitting me if I was out here running around. No if about it, really. Pops knew I was here and he was doing his best to make sure I wasn’t hit in the crossfire.

It seemed to take an eternity for me to run around behind the men shooting toward Billie’s house. In reality it was only a minute at the most, but every gunshot ticked my anger up another notch. Those fuckers were trying to kill my woman. I only wished I had the time to make them die in the most painful way possible. That would take too fucking long though, so I had to be satisfied with shedding their blood as quickly as I could.

Kneeling down, I raised my rifle and found my targets in my scope. The night vision had them lit up like the fourth of July. There were two hunkered down behind the feed shed. One was down on one knee, while the other stood over him as they took turns shooting at the house.

I focused on the one standing first. The guy on his knee would take an extra second to stand before he turned. Unless he was really well trained and just spun on his knee instead. Most of these men weren’t highly trained. And though it seemed like the logical thing to do, spin before standing, in a high anxiety situation like this your brain moved a bit slower than your instincts. It was why we practiced so much in the military.

We needed everything we did to be muscle memory, so that our bodies reacted in the appropriate manner while our minds tried to catch up with what was happening. Guaranteed this guywas going to want to face the threat on his feet, not his knees because being lower down felt, to his lizard brain—the part that processed the automatic response of fight or flight—like a more vulnerable position. I planned to use that to my advantage.

The rifle kicked in my hand as I shot the first man, then aimed in on the chest of the second. My muzzle raised as he did exactly what I expected him to and I shot him center mass while he tried to stand to face me. He fell forward, landing in the dirt.

Bullets whizzed over my head as I zig zagged my way toward the shed. A quick check showed that the men were dead. But the rest of them knew where I was now and were bearing down on me.

Taking the only chance I’d probably have, I let out a whoop to call attention to myself and made a beeline for the barn. I needed to draw these guys away from the house.

CHAPTER 39

Billie

Iblinked hard after pulling the trigger on the shotgun. The flash from the muzzle had blinded me and now I couldn’t see anything.

“Good shot,” Daryl said. “Try to close one eye when you pull the trigger, if you can, without messing up your aim. That will help keep the muzzle flash from killing your night vision.”

“Thanks,” I said. My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark again and I stared at the man lying on the floor, eyes open, only a few feet from where we crouched behind the table. He’d burst in through the front door and I’d been forced to spin and shoot him.

My hands were shaking. I’ve threatened people with a gun plenty of times in the past, but I’d never shot anyone before. And I’d certainly never killed someone. I swallowed hard as I stared at the body.

It didn’t seem to matter to my nervous system that the guy had been about to kill us. It had my body trembling no matter what I tried to tell myself. I was glad that the other men out there decided not to follow their friend through my door. I would shoot them if I had to, but I wasn’t ready to just yet. I needed a minute to process.

“You okay?” Daryl asked, eyeing me.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am,” I whispered.

“That man made his decision,” he pointed out. “He’d have killed us if you hadn’t shot him.” He reached out and took the shotgun from me. Probably a good idea considering how badly I was shaking right now.

“I know,” I told him, tone determined even though my body wasn’t listening.

“Good,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Soon as you feel up to it, pick that back up because more will be coming.” He set the shotgun on the floor directly in front of me so it was within reach.

“Thanks, Daryl.” I was grateful he wasn’t making fun of me. Though I wasn’t sure what kind of person made fun of others when they’re shaken after killing their first person. “You think he’s okay?”

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