Page 66 of From the Noblest Motives
"There are five? I keep getting the same one." Shudder clapped his mouth shut. He just couldn't help himself around Blaze, but this wasn't the time.
Dr. Parma shook her head. "He intercepted me at the house. To take me intosupervisorycustody, as he put it. Turn here, Blaze."
Brows furrowed, Blaze asked, "How the hell did you get away?"
"I identified him as an intruder to the house system." She pulled in another slow breath. "The house neuro-stunned him."
"Ha! Good. Asshole deserved it."
"Blaze." She packed a metric ton of remonstrance into that one word. "I feel sick that I had to. I've known most of you since you were small, to one extent or another. Slow down a bit, dear. It's just through those trees up ahead."
"What's—"
The truck's short-range comm crackled, and Shudder didn't get to finish his question. Through the static came Fox's airy voice. "Please stop, Dr. Parma. I honestly don't want to hurt anyone."
Shudder turned in his seat when the whine of a high-powered vehicle reached him. The sleek, predatory outline of a single-person Guild skimmer had just made the turn onto the path. "He's behind us. Closing fast."
"Blaze." Damien pulled the partition open. "Fox is behind us."
"I'm aware, hon, thanks."
"What do we do?"
That evil grin Shudder remembered so well crept across Blaze's face. "He wants us to stop? We'll stop."
The brakes shrieked as Blaze slammed his foot down and spun the truck to the right. It slid to a stop across the path, and with that grin still in place, Blaze got out, pulling his biggest gun left-handed from his thigh holster.
"Everyone on the other side of the truck. This could get messy."
No one bothered with,No, Blaze, don't. The adults all knew him too well, and the kids were too scared. Blaze straddled the path, pistol held ready, fireball gathering over his right palm, and the setting sun brushing his red-gold hair into flames. The electric waves rushing through Shudder's body were only partly fear. He wanted to sigh in longing, to paint this moment in his memory—Blaze as battled-crazed Cuchulain facing down an army alone. As Bellerophon with the Chimera roaring toward him. As General Pichai facing the enemy with a sword in either hand.
My Blaze. You know I never stopped loving you and your stupidly brave heart.
Instead of scurrying behind the truck as ordered, Shudder found himself limping forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Damien pulling something from the back of the truck and coming forward as well.
"On your left, hon." Shudder went to one knee with both palms on the ground, beside and a little behind Blaze to stay out of his line of fire.
"And your right." Damien had stopped in line with Shudder, carrying, of all things, a crowbar.
"Oh for fu—"
"Emerson, stand down. You're interfering in Guild business." Again, Fox cut someone off mid-sentence, this time on some fancy intercom system in his skimmer, which he'd stopped at the bend in the path, presumably to give Blaze a chance to get out of the way.
Lacking an intercom, Blaze tucked his handgun under his arm and raised a single-finger salute high. An irritated sound from the skimmer preceded the comm crackling as Fox cut the connection.
"Blaze?" Damien's voice didn't quiver, but there was definite concern as the skimmer accelerated forward.
"Watch and learn, boys." Blaze let out a dark chuckle. "Oh wait. You can't do this."
The fireball hovering over Blaze's hand increased in size until the heat seared Shudder's scalp. He thought Blaze had left it too long as the skimmer barreled down on them. There was no way he could do enough damage to the canopy to stop it in time.
That first fireball scorched the belly of the craft, and Fox kept on course, apparently concluding that Blaze's aim was terrible. Blaze hurled three more in quick succession, all at the underside of the skimmer. Suddenly, it made sense to Shudder. He wasn't trying to hit Fox. He was going for the guidance system wires that lived in the belly of every skimmer.
The fourth fireball caught, and Blaze raised his gun and began firing at the flames licking at the skimmer's belly. At two hundred meters out, an echoing snap came from underneath Fox's craft. He was close enough for them to see his eyes widen in shock as his skimmer keeled over to the right, plowed a furrow in the weeds at the side of the path, and went nose first into an ancient fir.
All the dirt had served to put out the fire, but the canopy mechanism had been damaged in the crash. Fox shoved and hammered at the frame that should have opened and let him come after them but most decidedly refused to.
"Shuds, since you're here…" Blaze shook his right hand and blew out his cheeks with a hard breath. "Think you can fix it so Foxy Loxy won't be getting out for a good while?"
