Page 85 of Stay in Your Lane!

Everett glanced down at me and did a double take. His eyes widened, and he looked at someone else as he gestured furiously at me.

Through the cotton stuffed in my ears, I finally made out some words: “Needs an ambulance! Now!”

Did I? Was I in that bad a shape?

Well, I sure didn’t feel like I was in good shape, so… maybe?

Above me, Everett showed his palms. He still had a gun—my gun?—in hand, but had his finger outside the trigger guard.

With his free hand, he motioned over his shoulder, then down at me. From his gestures and his facial expressions, he was negotiating something. Urgently but calmly.

Then he wasn’t speaking, but he was nodding. He’d pause, nod again, pause, nod again.

After a few rounds of this, he exhaled, his shoulders slumping, and my hearing was returningjustenough to catch him saying, “She’s safe outside? And you’ll get him an ambulance?”

From somewhere thousands and thousands of miles away, a male voice replied, “She’s fine. Ambulance is waiting outside. Just put the gun down, and come quietly, and nobody gets hurt.”

“Everett,” I moaned.

His jaw twitched. Then, in a painfully slow gesture, he leaned toward the counter, set the gun down, and put his hands up again.

He was surrendering? Why was?—

What else could he do? I was down. It was him against the whole damn police force.

A memory cut through the fog in my brain, and I realized someone had tossed in a flashbang. That was what had fucked up my head.

And only one department on the city’s police force deployed or even carried flashbangs:

FuckingSWAT.

God, of course he was surrendering—he may have had a reckless streak, but he wasn’t going to be a one-man vigilante against SWAT.

I felt around for his leg and grabbed it. He glanced down at me, but returned his attention to someone else.

“You coming quietly?” that other voice asked.

Everett nodded slowly. When his hands moved again, this time to the back of his head, my blood turned cold. Oh no. No, we weren’t getting out of this, were we?

“Anything you want,” he said unsteadily. “Just get him to a hospital. Okay?”

“Soon as my boys cuff you,” the other man said, “the paramedics will be on him. Agreed?”

Everett swallowed hard, fear radiating off him but not as much as fierce determination. “Agreed.”

Then everyone was in motion. Two guys in black tactical gear appeared, and despite Everett surrendering, they hauled him to his feet and slammed him over the counter.

“Hey! Hey!” I shouted. I tried to get up but my head was spinning too fast. The world lurched under me, almost making me puke. I managed to grab one cop’s calf, though. “He’s surrendering! You don’t have to be so?—”

But EMTs were swarming around me.

And the SWAT guys were gone.

And so was Everett.

And I had no idea what would happen next.

The flashbang’s effects had mostly worn off by the time they loaded me into the ambulance. My vision had cleared. My hearing was still muffled; one of the EMTs said that wouldprobably last until my eardrums had healed. Allegedly, I’d get all or most of my hearing back. We’d see.

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