Page 55 of Viral Justice

Max examined her, bending down to get a good look at her. When he got to her left side, he touched her poncho and came away with blood on his fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me you were injured?”

“Oh.” She stared at the blood and tried to remember when she’d gotten hurt. Right, when she’d killed the asshole. “I forgot.”

He gave her anare you kidding?expression.

“Sorry.” She lifted her hands. “It was a knife. One of the men who killed the women at the well must have tracked me. He was about to shoot me and two little kids who had the bad luck of being near me when the shooting started.”

“If he had a gun, why do you have a knife wound?” he asked as he lifted her poncho and bent closer to her.

“I was trying not to draw attention, so I didn’t want to use my rifle again. I took his weapon away, but I guess he had a knife too.”

“You killed him with your bare hands?” Max asked, rearing back to stare at her. “A man with a rifleanda knife?”

“Like I said.” She was trying to be patient with him, but sometimes Max made it difficult when he kept asking her to repeat what she’d just told him. “I was trying to be quiet and quick.”

“Your hands are quicker than a gun?”

“They’re quieter,” she said between clenched teeth, working hard to refrain from smacking him.

“I can’t see how bad it is. You have too many layers of clothing in the way. How painful is it?”

They had bigger problems to deal with right now. “It’s not bad.”

“Right,” Max drawled. “You forgot all about it.”

“We can worry about it when we’re out of danger.”

“Speaking of which,” Tom said softly, nodding behind them. “Here comes a little trouble.”

Ali turned.

The bigger of the two boys she’d gotten to safety stood only a few feet away.

Chapter Thirteen

The boy was staringat Ali’s bloody clothing.

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