Page 47 of Uncontrolled

Her smile is small, but I’ll take it. It’s the first of hers I’ve seen since yesterday. Warmth ripples inside me as I check out the house, the windows, and make sure we’re not being watched where we stand in the center of the driveway. No one stares back at us. The place appears abandoned. A rollercoaster drop starts in my gut. Setup, my brain hisses.

“Dandelions are survivors,” Allie insists. I hear the tease in the words.

“You’re calling me a scrappy weed!” I argue, attempting to sound insulted as I shade the sun, warily studying the house.

She cuffs me playfully across the bicep and my attention snaps to her. Her thumb feathers my jaw before she rises onto her tiptoes to kiss me. “Couldn’t think of a better set of petals to have my back,” she says, and then she starts us on the trek toward the garage.

Allie

“Grab his neck!” I scream at Christopher.

My hands are slick, blood covered as I struggle with the guy thrashing in the ancient Lincoln’s back seat. Somehow, he ended up on top of me in the ten seconds since he bolted upright and proved himself not even close to dead.

I watch in horror as the bullet wound in his neck spurts a fresh spray. It splashes across my cheek and soaks the top of my shirt before the rest of the arterial glug puddles against the leather underneath me. A shocked sound of disgust erupts from my throat.

“How much blood can this guy have in him?” I growl though I know the answer. A gallon and a half in a normal human male. Most of this normal human male’s is splattered across my clothes, my skin, in my mouth, coating a good portion of the car windows.

He’s incoherent, terrified, and the round in his neck isn’t his only problem. There’s another in his chest. His lung gives a hiss and rattle with each labored inhale and exhale. Not long now, I promise myself.

Above the guy and behind him, I see the whites of Christopher’s eyes, wide and wild.

“Help me, you scrappy weed!” I yell.

It’s the most ridiculous thing I can say but to my utter amazement Christopher rallies, snatching our very not-dead subject, dragging him off me and onto the garage floor.

Panting, I lay flat, exhausted, adrenaline twitching through my muscles. This is not what I signed up for, I think. And then another thought burns through me. You’re jumping in, both feet.

“Allie!” Christopher calls.

So much for resting.

I hoist myself, press a palm to help me scoot over and end up slipping. My attention skitters across the front seat as I fight my way free of the car. I’d have to be blind not to notice the enormous sidearm on the front passenger side, the ink-stained twenties and fifties papering the floor there.

Christopher’s got the guy pinned. Our failed bank robber’s not moving. Maybe he kicked the bucket.

I hear the unmistakable sound of a shotgun racking. Instantly, my hands lift skyward.

“Get the hell off him!” the woman yells. In the fuss and fun, I totally forgot her.

“Easy,” Christopher says. He’s got his knee dug into the middle of the guy’s spine.

“I was told you could fix him no matter how bad they shot him,” she says.

I dare a quick peek at the scrawny brunette and then slide my foot in an obvious move to draw her attention. The barrel of the shotgun swings toward me.

Good, I think. Keep it on me. Not Christopher.

“I’m a resurrectionist!” I plead. “I bring back the dead!” I point to her friend on the garage floor. “He wasn’t dead yet!”

Her mouth curls into a sassy snarl. “Real sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Yeah, I’ll add it to your bill,” I say, mimicking her, and I can’t help but wonder if in another life, we might have been friends.

“He dead now?” she asks. Her voice wavers.

I fixate on her every movement. “My boyfriend is going to check your man for a pulse, okay?”

Her head jiggles. The barrels of the shotgun twitch in a way that makes me supremely uncomfortable.

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