Page 89 of The Mercenary's Guide to Mishaps and Romance

“The key doesn’t have a button.”

“They’re going to murder us.”

“They’re not,” he says a moment before a bullet pings off the mirror, making him duck down. “I mean, maybe they are. But it’ll be fine.”

“How? Where in the fucking dictionary does it state that getting shot at will lead to anyone beingfine?”

Tavish yanks the door open and hits every button before he finds the unlock button. In a panic, I dive into the car.

“You’re going to drive,” he decides.

That just sounds horrific. “Why am I driving?”

“So I can shoot.”

“Why are you shooting?”

“Because weirdly, if you shoot someone first, they can’t shoot you as easily after.”

“Fucking hell,” I mutter as I climb over his lap and into the driver’s seat where I start the car. The moment I go to gun it, the African grey parrot flutters down from the sky and lands on the windshield. She grabs on to the windshield wiper, clearly quite put out that I’ve taken off without her in the car.

“Oh no! Grab her!” I say as the car creeps along at like two miles per hour while the murder brigade rushes onto the scene.

Tavish seems less than thrilled by the idea. “It’s a fucking bird! She’ll fly off!”

“No! She obviously wants inside! Grab her! What if they shoot her?”

“What if they shoot me?” he asks.

“But she’s so cute and innocent. If you don’t grab her, I’m stopping the car and getting out. She’s on your side; I can’t reach her from here.”

“Fucking hell,” Tavish grumbles as he starts climbing out through the window while I creep along, afraid I’m going to hurther, but also afraid that if we stay behind, someone’s going to murder us.

Tavish reaches his hand out, fingers spread, reaching as far as his arm will go just as a bullet hits the windshield, leaving a nice little hole in the space between his index finger and his thumb.

“Why the fuck are they shooting at us?” I ask in a panic.

“Christ! I nearly lost a fucking finger! Drive, Ellis! She’s a bird! She’s got bird wings! I don’t know if you know this, but birds can fly! They take these things covered in these fancy feathers and fly off!” He’s yelling all of this so I can hear it from inside the car, but even with all of the hollering, he still risks his life to snatch her. She ispissedand bites onto him.

“Motherfucker! I should have used you as a bullet sponge,” he growls as he drags her in and tosses her to me.

Her feathers are all ruffled as Tavish’s hand bleeds all over the place.

“I’ll fuck you up,” she declares to Tavish, puffing up some more and stomping her feet as she declares what all she’ll do to him.

“You already did! And I saved your feathered ass! You should be worshiping me, not pissing me off!”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t think they’d start shooting at us! I didn’t mean for you to nearly get shot!”

“It’s fine! I nearly get shot a lot.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better!”

I gun the car just as I see a police car heading down the road.

“Fall in behind them,” Tavish instructs as he quickly sits back down. “Just fall in behind them.”

“O-Okay,” I say as I do, and Tavish lays on the horn.

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