Page 133 of Red Rooster

Something closed around her wrist, and sent her crashing to the floor. The flames faltered. Her hair fell in her face and she thrashed to clear it, to see, to get loose from the thing that held her.

It was a hand, she saw.

Spence’s hand.

He looked down at her, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes wide and frightened, as he slapped a cuff to her wrist.

And then she understood: this wasn’t a robbery. It was a trap, and she was the prey. Spence was part of it.

A slow trap, but one nonetheless.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “you seemed nice.” And fire filled her hand, and swelled, boiling into the air between them.

~*~

They were a dozen strides from the door of the diner when its big plate glass window exploded in a shower of glass that glinted like fire in the light of the setting sun. A man landed on the sidewalk with a solid thump. And Rooster realized therewasfire – both inside the diner, and on the man’s sleeve, flames that he tried furiously to beat out with a reddened, scorched hand.

Fire meant one thing: Red.

Rooster felt the old switch inside himself get flipped. He had one objective now: find her, secure her, extract her from the situation. Anyone who got in his way would be collateral damage.

It was too warm for it, but he’d worn a jacket. He reached inside it now, hand closing around the butt of the Beretta he kept there. He drew as he took a running step forward–

And his leg buckled.

His right leg. His good leg.

He didn’t understand at first; he took a step, and suddenly the concrete of the sidewalk was rushing up to meet him. He threw out his hands to catch himself, the gun in his right, and rolled sideways onto his shoulder, his back, attempted to spring back to his feet.

And that was when he realized what was wrong.

Pain ripped through his calf, a bright, fresh hurt. He saw the blood on the leg of his jeans, running down over the top of his boot, pattering down onto the sidewalk. He’d been shot. In his good leg. He’d been so focused, he hadn’t even heard the gun. But he somehow knew, before he lifted his gaze, who would be holding it.

Jack’s eyes were huge in his face, his mouth open. “What are you doing?” he shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”

Jake held a sleek little Glock in one hand, and his expression was apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Rooster shot him in the heart.

All of this had taken a single second. When the round from the M9 shoved Jake back, Rooster didn’t wait to watch the body hit the ground. He lurched to his feet, teeth gritted against the pain. He had to put all his weight on his bad leg, and hobble forward, but he did it. He had to get to Red.Had to.

He reached the shattered window, and the burned man. It was Spence, the kid from the garage. His eyebrows were singed off; one side of his face was blistering. Tears ran down his cheeks.

“Hold it,” a woman’s voice said.

She stood facing him, on the far side of Spence, a Glock of her own held in steady hands. Athletically built, hard-eyed, unmistakably military – formerly. At the moment she wore the plain black fatigues and tac gear of every other Institute lackey that had come for Red.

His finger caressed the trigger.

Red stumbled out through the window, a set of massive silver cuffs dangling from her right wrist, her left hand raised, fire flickering in her palm. She didn’t hesitate; sent a spray of flame toward the woman, as focused and forceful as the blast from a flame thrower.

The woman shouted and staggered back, bringing up her arm to shield her face.

“Hold her there!” Rooster shouted over the rush and crackle of fire, and shot out the window of the car parked at the curb beside them. It took two rounds, and then he had to peel the safety glass away. With a bloody hand, he dragged himself across the front seat and started pulling wires. “Red!” he called when he had the engine started. “Let’s go!”

She didn’t so much jump into the car as fall into it; she pulled the door shut with her left hand, having to reach across her body, her right hanging limp in her lap.

The second the door clicked, Rooster gunned the engine and they peeled away from the curb. Several oncoming cars swerved to avoid them. Blare of horns. Crunch of metal. But they were clear, and he kept going. He’d stopped feeling guilty about property damage and theft a long time ago.

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