Page 85 of Asking for Trouble

“HELP!” The word echoed through the clearin’ as clear as the bullet from Bat’s sniper rifle.

I shot across the packed earth beside the barn, trustin’ the Garros to take down their rivals without help.

Blue needed me more than them.

The edge’a the cornfield was a solid wall’a darkness, Blue’s voice comin’ from somewhere within. I searched the seam methodically for a point’a entry and lost my breath to the relief that surged like gorge up my throat when I noticed the broken stalks at the other end’a the barn.

I dove into the narrow gap without hesitation, my heart beatin’ hard at the back’a my tongue.

’Cause the screams had stopped.

I refused to think about what that could mean for Blue and sprinted through the stalks, corn slappin’ across my face and body as I plunged forward.

“Help me!”

The sound’a the scream was almost sweet to me as it pierced the clouded night sky ’cause it meant she was still alive.

And I was gettin’ closer.

Behind me, the sounds’a shoutin’ grew near, and the rustle’a stalks echoed my own as someone dove into the dark field behind me.

I didn’t focus on that.

Blue’s cries grew louder and louder, a beacon for me in the dark.

When I suddenly broke into a small clearin’, I immediately noticed the tangle’a two bodies on the ground. Without thought, I shoved the flashlight in my mouth to shine the light on the pair and raised my gun in both hands, steady as a boat keel, not a shake’a a finger.

When I pulled the trigger, the blast reverberated through the clearin’, loud as a cannon shot.

A man’s head slumped between his shoulders, a neat bullet hole through the base’a his skull, the front’a his face blown out to glisten across the crops like a rural Jackson Pollock paintin’.

No more screams pierced the night.

“Blue!” I shouted as I slid to my knees in the blood-soaked corn and worked to move the dead body’a the Raider off the form pinned beneath it. “Blue, fuck, Blue, baby!”

With one forceful shove, boots slippin’ in the bloody stalks, I forced the body to the side.

Revealin’ my woman, crushed in the greenery, covered in a man’s blood and, maybe, her own. Her closed eyes were caked in blood, chin tipped to the night sky, unresponsive. My hands feathered over her body, checkin’ for bullet holes and stab wounds, broken bones and missin’ limbs. Her shorts were unbuttoned, but not removed, and I righted them with shaky hands, refusin’ to think in what-ifs. I didn’t stop murmurin’ her name as my fingers pressed to her blood-hot neck, searchin’ for a pulse.

It thrummed and thrummed beneath her skin.

“Fuck,” I said with an explosive sob just as a shout behind me alerted me to another threat.

I spun, crouchin’ over Blue with my gun raised, the flashlight in my other hand keepin’ it steadily trained at the parted corn path I’d tunnelled through moments ago.

From the dark maw, an unfamiliar man appeared with a hatchet in his hand, the beam’a the flight light glintin’ off his smile.

Before I could get a shot off, he fell with a surprised grunt to his knees, eyes blown wide a second ’fore a dark shape appeared over him. The sound of a blade slicin’ through sinew and muscle hissed slick through the air, openin’ a line straight across the Raider’s throat.

He fell to the ground at Blue’s feet with a gargled cough as he started to choke on his own blood.

In the space where he stood was Curtains, outta breath but grinning maniacally at me in the light’a the flash.

“Told you I got your back, brother,” he panted ’fore droppin’ to Blue’s other side. “She’s…?”

“Alive,” I whispered hoarsely. “I think she’s got a broken hand and can’t tell what blood’s hers or not, but she might be bleedin’ from the face or head.”

“Fuck,” Curtains muttered. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to her sooner, man.”