Page 180 of Lone Star

~*~

Jenny dropped to the floor on instinct while glass was still raining down. She was aware of Maddox doing the same, and when she glanced up was shocked to find him unharmed.

“They missed,” he said, his mouth slack, his eyes wide. Then: “Shit.”

Another window went; Jenny heard the gunshot this time. Not a hunting rifle. Only a small-caliber round. Nine mil – maybe an AR-15. Maybe just a Glock.

Panic welled a moment, sharp and salty on the back of her tongue. Her baby was here; her nephew was here. She thought of Darla back in the sanctuary, prayed that she’d stay back there – and then she shoved every thought that was a liability away.

“Prospect!” she called, already turning and scuttling toward the bar on hands and knees, careful of the sugar-shiny glint of glass on the floorboards.

“Yes, ma’am.” A glance proved he was bent low, and already had the shotgun from under the bar unstrapped, laying it out on the counter. He was stuffing his pockets with extra shells from the box they kept beside the tub of limes.

Talis drew his gun, uncharacteristically spooked. “If they try what they did before…”

“Then we’re fucked,” Jenny said. “Who has an extra piece?”

He produced one from the back of his jeans and slid it across the floor to her. Its cool weight in her palm was an immediate reassurance. “Someone get word to Candy,” she said, “and somebody get to the back door.” Because, fuck it, she was giving orders now.

She reached the far wall, turned and put her back to it, crouched, gun ready across her thigh. She saw that Maddox was still frozen over underneath the window. Deer-in-the-headlights, rabbit-in-a-snare, that was him now, swamped beneath the weight of another moral quandary they didn’t have time for.

“You with us?” she called.

And someone kicked the door in.

~*~

Reese wished he had his night vision goggles, but there was plenty of moonlight, and his eyesight was nearly perfect anyway. He heard Candy get hit, and drop, but turning back would only put him in the line of fire. So he moved; kept to the shadows and slipped soundlessly down the ridge, pausing, pressing his back flat to tree trunks and holding his breath, listening.

Two men, a dozen steps away, behind him. Breathing loudly through their mouths, not trying to step quietly. Sharp, up-close cracks of gunfire. .45s. No – one .45, one .09.

Reese ran the scenario in his head. Took three slow, silent breaths, and moved. Around the tree, two long strides, knife in his hand – stray flash of moonlight down its blade. Dark shape of a man, an enemy; his head turned when Reese’s hand landed on his shoulder, but it was already too late, the knife already sliding into his throat.

A choked gasp, a gurgle, the bright, metallic scent of fresh blood as he pulled the knife loose and kept moving.

“Hey,” the second man said. “Jimmy?”

Reese cut his throat with a flick of his wrist, a sharp slice. Felt the patter of warm, wet droplets against his own face and throat, and was already moving as the body fell, stepping over it.

He kept moving, and killed four more men. He had to pause and wipe the blood off the knife blade onto the leg of his pants. By that point, the cars had arrived: two low-slung Mercedes sedans.

They glided to a halt in the gravel, headlights trained on the front of the workshop. Reese glimpsed movement in the shadows: someone walking around the side of the building. He thought – but, no, he registered a patch: the distinctive flag of a Dog officer.

The passenger doors of the near car opened in near-perfect unison, and Reese moved in time to receive two matching startled glimpses from the front and back seat as he leveled a gun on the two men there, one in each of his hands.

“Drop your weapons through the windows,” he said. “Slowly.”

The doors of the second car opened – a stolen glance revealed the glint of weapons…and the bright yellow flash of the sledgehammer handle, as Mercy stepped out of the shadows and brought the head down on the car’s windshield on the driver’s side.

The glass broke into a spiderweb of cracks; still in place, but too hopelessly fractured to see through.

Mercy pulled back, and in the same fluid movement put the hammer through the driver’s side window. Itdidshatter, bits of glass flying, catching the light like confetti. When he reached through the window, the man behind the wheel yelped.

Fox and Albie and Jackal stepped forward into the light, guns trained on the cars.

“Anyone else in the trees, kid?” Fox asked.

Reese said, “No.”

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