Page 98 of Vaquero
“Is someone coming?” she whispered.
“Yes, but they’re too far away. Stay low.”Please, for the love of God, stay low. Rest while you can. Let me handle this.Julio didn’t want to think what these bastards would’ve done to Meg if he hadn’t shown. Pigs, even the two-legged kind, were straight-up cannibals.
He lifted to one knee alongside Meg, needing to be sure. Needing them to see him. Not her. He’d never been a fan of that military saying:From a place you will not see… Comes a sound you will not hear.Hell no. He wanted these guys to damned well know they were going to die, who was going to kill them, and why.
Crossing himself with both arms, his Berettas slipped easily from their opposing holsters into his palms.
At last, the killer on the far left froze and waved for his buddies behind him to halt. All forward action ceased as three pairs of cold, dead eyes zeroed in on Julio. Then Meg. Then the rifle in her hands.
He waited. They were close enough now. They knew. They saw. Now was the time to declare their innocence. Or die.
As expected, all three sprang to life with a roar. Like demonic conjoined triplets, they burst off the balls of their feet, firing their rifles on the run. Frightening, yes. Intended to shock and awe the inexperienced, maybe. But not smart.
Julio fired twice. Meg fired once. All three assholes fell, but then Meg fired again and kept firing. And firing. ON one knee now, she kept spraying their bodies with her room broom, her system on overload, until at last, Julio reached for the weapon and stilled her trigger finger.
“I… I… I…”
“You did fine,” he assured her as he lifted the short stock up and out of her grip. “Thank you for having my six.”
“Y-your s-s-six?” she hissed, her voice quavering and weak as she tipped back into the tree and planted both trembling hands at her sides. “I… I think I had your h-hundred, m-maybe your th-thousand. I c-c-couldn’t s-s-stop.”
“Works for me,” he replied simply. She’d only done what he would’ve had to do. One shot might take a man down, but a double-tap made certain he stayed down. So what if Meg had turned that single-tap into a dozen or twenty? Now, Julio didn’t have to go out there and do it.
“I can w-w-walk,” Meg told him, her voice still weak, but colored with her usual stubbornness.
He didn’t want her to come with him. She was severely wounded, and to be honest, he’d been surprised how firmly she’d held that weapon with injured, bandaged fingers and hands. But there was no choice. He couldn’t leave her here. “We don’t have far to go. Tell me when you need to stop and rest.”
As he spoke calmly and reasonably with her, he reached back into his bag and retrieved a bottled sports drink. Twisting the cap off, he put it in her trembling hands, then wrapped her fingers around the bottle to make sure she didn’t drop it. Poor thing was on the verge of falling apart, not what he needed when he confronted Zapata.
Meg’s smile was as weak as her voice, but she lifted that bottle and tipped her head back, downing half the drink before she set the bottle on her trembling kneecap. “Thanks. I only had enough water for Dom. But that’s okay. I didn’t mind.”
But Julio did. Forced marches were hard on the strongest men, but for a woman to go without rehydration? In this heat? Unthinkable. Julio gave her just enough time to rest. Gave those well-touted electrolytes and waterthe minimumtime to restore her energy, too.
But time was not on their side. By now, Zapata would’ve heard the gunfire. He was now forewarned and forearmed. Which spelled trouble for Dominic. Zapata was not known for kindness. Whatever he wanted that boy for had nothing to do with fatherly love.
Julio lifted to his feet, not sure how he could safely rescue the boy without further traumatization. Life shouldn’t be this hard.
“I’m going with you,” Meg said again. She set a hand to the ground beside her and rolled to one hip, shaky but determined to get back on her feet.
“Not yet,” Julio told her patiently, his palm gentle on her shoulder.
With a huff, she leaned back against the tree trunk, a sorry, sad sight with all that blood smeared on her face and over her head.
Tugging his pack of wet-wipes out of a pants pocket, he handed them to Meg. Then, Julio took a tiny hypo from his blow-out kit. He only carried the one. “This is only a local, Meg. It won’t last long, but it will kill the pain while we travel. Do you want it now, or would you rather wait until we take Zapata down? Until you have Dom back?”
“Later,” she replied quickly. “I’ve got a son to rescue, and a man to kill. Hurry, Julio. Help me up, damn it. Let’s do this.”
Julio almost smiled. This woman meant to die to save a boy that wasn’t even hers. An orphan.Dios, I love her.
