The moment the truck straightened out, I fired again, blowing out one of the van’s back wheels.
The whole vehicle jerked, but it should have been able to keep going. A deflated wheel shouldn’t have been enough to stop such a sturdy vehicle, but luck wasn’t on their side. The tire blew at exactly the same moment as they hit a large root that was growing across the road. The combined effect was enough to make the van swerve out of control. They fishtailed, tires struggling to find traction on the dirt road, and their back end knocked against a tree. Vans were naturally more top heavy, and at such a high speed, the impact caused the whole van to flip.
I hit the brakes to keep from crashing into them and was helpless to do anything but watch as the van rolled over several times. There was a chilling shriek of bending metal as with each roll the van made it twist more and more out of shape.
I forgot to even put my truck in park as I jumped out the door and ran for the van.
“Ellis!”
One of the van’s doors fell off its hinges and a body fell out.
It wasn’t Ellis. Even without seeing their face, I knew just from their physique that it was one of the assailants.
And they were still alive. They groaned as they crawled away from the wreckage, injured but clearly alive.
Deputy Hillard ran past me and grabbed the assailant’s arm. “You’re under arrest. Anything you say?—”
He never got to finish reciting the Miranda Rights as I raised my rifle and shot the assailant directly in the head.
Deputy Hillard jumped back. “What the hell? You can’t just…”
He trailed off as I stepped over the fresh body, kicking it over with my foot as I went. My modified rifle was no joke, and the entire back of the assailant’s head was now gone.
“Yes, I can.” I paused when I reached Deputy Hillard. “Are you going to stop me?”
Deputy Hillard quickly shook his head. He was more afraid of me in that moment than he had been during the entire car chase and gunfight.
Good. That would make things easier.
I approached the back of the van with my gun reloaded and at the ready. This one was going to haunt me. Right now, adrenaline was surging through my veins, so I wasn’t feeling anything but righteous fury, but once I calmed down, I knew the memory of the lives I took today would keep me awake at night for a while. I’d made it a point to make sure that killing neverbecame easy. I didn’t want to be one of those people who held such little regard for life.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t fight. When the situation called for it, I would still pull the trigger without hesitation.
I would just suffer for it later.
Some luck was on my side. The crash had killed the other assailants for me. They must have been standing in the back of the van when the crash happened and bounced around inside it like pinballs when the van flipped. Both of their necks were broken, and they lay in crumpled heaps among the wreckage.
“Ellis?” I called as I searched the bodies for any sign of the man. “Ellis? Answer me, damn it.”
I eventually found him hanging upside-down from the ceiling. He was strapped into a chair that had once been bolted to the side of the van, but with the van lying on its side, he was now dangling from the ceiling.
My fingers pressed against his neck.
His pulse hammered under my touch. He was alive.
Gasping with a sigh of relief, I rushed to find a way to get him down. “Hold on, Ellis. I’ve got you. Just… hold on.”
He didn’t make a sound. Even when I finally managed to free him from the straps keeping him in place, he didn’t so much as twitch.
I carefully carried Ellis out of the van and laid him on the ground.
He looked worse in the sunlight. The blood staining his skin was bright red, drawing attention to how pale his olive complexion had become.
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Deputy Hillard said as he also knelt beside Ellis. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know.” I tapped Ellis’s cheek a couple of times, trying to get some sort of reaction from him. “Ellis. Come on. Give me something.”
He stayed as silent as the dead. While he may have been alive, nothing I did would wake him up.