Page 25 of Wildflowers

This cannot be happening. I know stuff has transpired and we’ve discussed the collapse of societal norms several times now, but yeah. It still somehow comes as a complete surprise. None of them are showing signs of a fever. No coughing or sneezing. And not one of the three seems to have a runny nose. Being this close to them, however, is still one hell of a risk.

I climb off the bike and ease my backpack off. My fingers fumble over the buckle of my helmet, but I unclasp it in the end and put it on the ground.

One of the assholes walks up to us and grabs me by the arm.

He pulls the mask off my face, looks me over, and announces, “Yeah, she’ll do.” Which is rude. Then he turns to Dean, lookshimover, and says, “Drop your piece. Big son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“Drop your piece,” I repeat without thought. There is every chance my habit of babbling when nervous is going to get me killed. When my natural state of sarcasm will condemn me. It could even happen today. “Watch a lot of cop shows, do you?”

The asshole smacks me in the cheek, putting me on my ass. “Shut up, you stupid bitch.”

It turns out this is the signal. Me getting sucker punched.

None of this would have worked if the asshole who’d hit me had been secure enough in himself to carry a small weapon. But no. He’s wielding some huge fucking thing that takes time to bring up and into position.

And by the time he’s done that, Dean has already drawn his pistol and put one dead center of his heart. Bang.

I show some intelligence and curl up in the fetal position on the asphalt. Making as small a target of myself as possible. However, I still watch what’s happening, because this is life and death playing out in front of me.

Bullets fly on both sides. There are more misses in a gunfight than Hollywood would have you think. And it’s loud as heck.

Dean shoots the second asshole standing in front of the truck with relative ease. Just puts one through his face.

But the asshole standingbehindthe truck is a problem. He has shelter.

Dean drops to his knees and aims beneath the body of the beast of a vehicle. And a second later, the last of the three is screaming in pain and then silent as the grave.

“You still breathing?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I carefully rise to my feet. Getting punched kind of shook me. No one has ever hit me before. Or not since HannahMoore, the school bully, in third grade. There’s some splatter on me from the guy Dean shot in the chest. So gross. And the sharp scents of gunpowder and the copper of blood are in the air. But I amnotabout to burst into tears or anything. “How about you?”

Before he can answer, I have face-planted in the middle of his chest and am breathing deep. Or at least trying to. However, it takes me a minute to catch my breath, what with all of the sobbing.

He slips his gun back into the holster and pats me awkwardly on the back. Like he has nil experience with comforting a woman in distress. Which actually tracks with his personality and what little is known of his lived experience.

“It’s okay. They’re not going to hurt you ever again.”

I don’t actually blow my nose on his tee. But it’s a close thing. I take a step back and swipe away the tears and give him two thumbs up.

As for him, he eases off the jacket. Trails of blood are running down his right arm from a wound in his bicep.

I gasp. “You got shot!”

“It went through. Grab your first-aid pack and we’ll patch it up before we get back on the road. No idea if these dickheads had friends nearby. They didn’t seem sick, at least.”

I get the first-aid kit, but before dressing the wound, I say, “We need to get you meds in case of infection.”

“I have some antibiotics,” he says. “I mean, they’re out of date, but they’ll do.”

“How out of date?”

“Five or so years. They’re probably fine.”

I raise my brows. “No, Dean. We need a pharmacy.”

“Okay.” He inspects my face with a frown. “Your cheek is swelling.”

“Being mouthy might not have been the best idea in this instance.”

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