Page 5 of Day Death (Brutes of Bristlebrook Trilogy)

“Get back inside your fucking cars until I say so. Now!” Dom snaps, storming up the line of the convoy as people start opening doors.

“Lucky, you got eyes?” Thomas calls from a few cars down as Jayk climbs up into the back of his truck to see for himself.

“Looks like civilians. Not seeing any greens.” I scan the skies quickly, but it’s hard to make out much through the thick, bruised cloud cover. “No eyes on the air. No obvious action, though.”

“Roger that.” Dom unslings his rifle, and I wince as a car horn starts shrieking in town. Pockets of fire blaze like will-o’-the-wisps.

This isn’t right. We’re only thirty miles from base, and Howards Evac Center is just on the other side of town, freshly built just ten years ago when things started heating up. There should be police, evac teams here working to get people to safety. Maybe even our guys, though I could see the Colonel wanting to keep boots on base.

But this town was meant to be safe.

It’s not meant to be a war zone.

From the street, a woman lets out a bone-chilling scream and, at once, all Rangers’ heads whip toward the fight. My pulse starts to pound.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit! I hate it when civs are involved.

A bloom of fire explodes from a supermarket window, and a half-dozen people burst out like a scattering herd.

And the screaming cuts off.

Suddenly, Beau breaks away from the head of the convoy, taking off at a run toward town. His medical bag is strapped to his back, and someone gave him his goddamned rifle.

“Dom! Beau!” Jayk snaps, and Dom wheels around, cursing when he spots Beau on the move.

“Thomas, you and Lucky protect the convoy,” Dom shouts as he takes off after Beau. “Jayk, with me. Go!”

“Dom!” I jump down off the car, rifle in hand, ready to run after him. “I’m coming.”

“Stay the fuck here, Lucky!”

He doesn’t even look back. He’s off, he and Jayk gaining ground on Beau.

Anxious fury ripping through me, I turn and kick the wheel of Jasper’s car. “Fuck!”

Whirling back around, I run a hand into my hair, gripping it hard. With the way the road slopes, the curve of it, I can’t see them from the ground. And I need to see.

I climb back up on Jasper’s car, my boots scuffing up the awful paint job.

“Lucien, perhaps we should wait in the car,” Jasper says carefully.

“Perhaps not,” I mutter, scanning for the guys as they duck out of sight.

Thomas is doing the same thing on Jayk’s truck.

As far as I can tell, there’s two groups. One inside the pharmacy and one outside, both shooting at each other. There are at least two people caught in the street between them, huddling behind a few trash cans that won’t stop shrapnel, let alone a bullet.

Shit .

“I think?—”

Impatient, I glance down at him. “Jasper, I’m really not trying to be a dick, but you just don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry about the boot marks, but I can’t keep anyone safe from inside your car.”

“I don’t care about the car,” Jasper mutters.

I look up just in time to see three bodies circling around the group outside the pharmacy, getting into position. They’ll hit them with a pronged attack. I can’t work out exactly how many they have to take down, but it won’t be easy to do without lethal force.

Lethal force on civilians. Jesus Christ.

Over painkillers? Antibiotics?

A few inhalers?

But seriously, how has rioting started already? We’re only hours into this thing. We’re meant to have procedures for this, people on the ground to keep this shit from happening. How are we meant to organize a response if people are losing their damn minds?

One of the trash cans explodes in a surge of refuse, and another blood-icing screech pierces the air. That’s a hit. Someone was hit.

“Is everything okay?” one of the doms calls from his car.

“Does it sound okay, Phill?” a woman’s voice snaps back, terrified.

“It’s okay, folks, we’ve got this. Just stay down,” Thomas calls out, strong and soothing. He’s usually pretty good with this sort of thing. Usually, I am too. “If you have a firearm, keep the safety on but keep it on hand, okay?”

I rub my forehead, dancing up on my toes like I’ll be able to see through the shadows any better. All the streetlights are out. Only angry red fires and the muzzle flashes of gunshots illuminate the night.

But I see one of the shooters’ shadows go down, and hope springs up.

They’ve got this. The guys are on it. We’ll fix it, get these people safe in the center and the town back in order. Maybe we’ll need to drag some of the crew back from base to help, but we’re together.

We can still fix it.

Some of the gunfire quietens a little, and my hand relaxes on my rifle.

It mostly just sucks that I’m on babysitting duty. I could use a good firefight to burn off some of this stress .

Eventually, I realize Jasper is leaning against the hood of his car, watching me.

I lift my brows at him in question, giving him an apologetic smile for snapping at him... even while I silently wonder how much trouble I’m in.

“May I see your phone?” he asks.

I frown, puzzled, as another fierce burst of gunfire rains down on the town. I tug my phone out of my pocket and he nods.

I toss it to him with a shrug. “It doesn’t have any signal, if that’s what you need. Dom has the only sat phone.”

“Passcode?” is all he says.

“Six nine six nine,” I reply slowly, and his eyes briefly lift in dry disdain before returning to the phone.

Restlessly, I look back down at the town. Fighter after fighter is winking out of view, though that poor woman’s agonized screams are still rending the night. Somewhere else, a man bellows for help, and somewhere else again, a window breaks.

Chaos.

It’s total chaos.

Is it . . . like this everywhere right now?

“Lucien... why is it that you think your parents are safe?”

Jasper’s question splits the air like no bullet ever could. Slowly, so slowly, icy cold dread begins to inch through my veins.

My screen glows in his hand, open on my parents’ texts.

He didn’t want my phone for himself.

“They’re... you read it. They wanted to go to Vegas. Road trip. So they’re... they’re on the road.” My lips feel strangely numb, and this time, that woman’s screams make me flinch.

Jasper sighs, nodding to himself. Then he switches the phone off and looks up at me.

“Are they?” he asks softly.

I stare at him.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask, my heart pounding erratically in my ears, and his eyes soften, so much like Beau’s when he said we’re dealing with the same thing.

The woman screams, and I look back at the town, then at Jasper, my throat drying up. That irrational angry panic sparks again, deep in my chest.

Fear is infectious.

I laugh wildly, then shake my head when he doesn’t answer. “No, seriously, why are you doing this? Is this helping? Is this helping anyone right now? You think this will help me ?”

Jasper runs a hand over his mouth, then seems to choose his words carefully. “You don’t seem to be grasping the gravity of the situation. I’m concerned that when you do... I want to be here, Lucien. For all of you, of course. But.. . I’m here.”

“You’re not my psychologist anymore, right?” I snap, with more heat than I meant to. I try to force the smile back to my face, but it feels awkward. Wrong. There’s too much reckless tension in me. The battle is running too hot. “You retired. Remember?” I swallow hard. “You left .”

Jasper tips his head back, his jaw flexing as he turns away. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

Too bad. I feel like a fight.

“So it’s okay to press me on my mess, but I can’t press you on yours? What were you running from, Jasper? Why the hell did you leave like that? You didn’t say anything. ”

I might as well strip naked for how much I’m baring myself, but why not? He knows anyway. My throat burns, hot and humiliated.

In the distance, the street war booms.

Then Jasper wheels back around, his eyes catching silvered starlight, intense and overbright. He’s angry.

“I had to go, Lucien,” he hisses, and fury turns him white to his lips. “This place was a nightmare for me, and you will never understand it. I needed to go. That wretched job and this awful town. All of it can burn! I’m done .”

It stabs me, right where I’m aching. He’s done with all of us.

Done with me.

I grab the back of my neck, a hard, bitter sound choking out of me. “Well, damn, Jasper. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we were so fucking terrible for you.”

Jasper slams a hand on the hood of his car, his face ablaze. “You have no idea what that cost me. To see you every day. To be there, like that, you?—”

“What?” Tears spring to my eyes, and I glare down at him. Every single word is another slice. “What did we cost you? Come on, you’ve come this far. You might as well?—”

“You ruined my life,” he roars, and all words die in my mouth.

I feel a part of myself die, too, when his eyes shimmer.

Brokenly, he whispers, “I wish I had never met you.”

Somewhere, an explosion booms, loud enough to level a building, and we stare at each other as the world comes crashing down around us.

My lips tremble, no matter how I press them together.

His do, too.

A job. I was just a job to him. A job he loathed . A job that hurt him.

I rub the back of my hand over my mouth, looking away from him. Gutted. I think that’s the word for it. Like I’ve been hollowed out at my very core by some sharp, scraping knife, one that didn’t bother to avoid a single nerve on its way out.

Jasper rests my cell phone by my foot, very softly.

Then he braces himself on the hood of his car, exhaling a slow, painful breath.

My head starts to feel light, my own breathing becoming shallow.

I can’t think of a single joke. Not even the dirty priest one.

“What the fuck is Beau doing?”

Thomas’s shout makes me blink, then whip my gaze back down at the town.

The group that was firing on the pharmacy seems to be down, cleared out by Dom, Jayk, and Beau, but shots are still popping off from inside, and there are more than a dozen other shadows crawling down the street toward it.

That pharmacy is a disaster.

It’s too exposed, from too many angles, to be anything but a prime shitshow. Our guys need to bail—we need more asses in gear to even have a hope of securing it.

Except instead of backing away, Beau is sliding in, skidding toward the trash cans while bullets shred the air around him on all sides. He’s illuminated by the fire in the next building as he hits the pavement next to her like he’s sliding into home plate.

My bleeding heart slams into my throat. The woman screaming, the one that got hit, he’s trying to save her.

The trash cans ring as bullets pepper the metal.

Holy shit.

He’s doing the hero thing.

I can’t make out words, but I hear Jayk shouting. Dom storms out into the middle of the street to cover Beau, spraying bullets above the window line of the pharmacy in a ballsy warning. He’s totally exposed, not even firing directly at the civilians inside—any person with a weapon and any training at all would take him out no question.

But they’re not trained.

They’re scared, angry people who have no fucking clue what they’re doing.

At Dom’s splattered bullets, the pharmacy goes quiet, and I hear Dom shout—probably at Beau. For a second, I think he’s got this.

But then one of the shadows down the street fires.

It’s a shitty shot, and Dom steps back sharply as Jayk backs into the street, loosing a string of bullets in the direction of the shot. That goes quiet too, only for another to start up from another angle, until Dom and Jayk are standing back-to-back in the street, protecting each other.

Protecting Beau and whoever is bleeding out on the side of the road.

From this angle, I can see a side service alley about fifteen meters down from the pharmacy. I know this town—it has good booze and a good sense of humor. I’ve stumbled down these streets more times than I’m proud of, and I could swear that alley opens out beside Give It Your Best Shot , my favorite grimy darts bar. If they can just get to the alley, they’ll be fine. They can take cover there, Beau can do his business, then they can leave out the other end. Maybe steal a J?germeister for their trouble.

No one wants them , after all. They just want the medicine.

But it only takes me a second to see that Dom and Jayk have the wrong angle to see it—and they’re too busy fighting off civilians to look.

I leap off the car, running toward town.

“Lucien? What are you doing?” Jasper shouts sharply.

Adrenaline starts chugging through my veins, and I turn around long enough to grin.

“Hero shit!”

There it is.

I flip back around, passing Thomas, and he gives me a startled look.

“Lucky? Fuck. Stop , we’re on orders to protect the?—”

“You protect them. I’m getting our guys,” I shout back.

My boots thump over the asphalt, and I click off the safety on my rifle. I pass the fallen utility pole blocking most of the road, climbing over the abandoned car in the other lane to avoid the sparking wires. Action and excitement and fear all surge through my veins, searing me clear of panic. Filling that hollow, hurting cavern.

I’m not made to sit on the sidelines.

Thinking. Feeling . Knowing I failed.

I can do all that later. Right now, I need to help my friends. There’s a freedom in just being able to do .

As I near the town, all the violent, crashing sounds become deafening. Rotten, sulphuric trash and smoky fire burns my nose, and I slow. Training kicks in, and this puzzle almost becomes fun again as I figure out my approach.

How do I get to the alley without accidentally dying?

Sounds like a good board game.

I glance over the bullet-littered streets, over Jayk swearing with a creativity I have to admire and over Dom barking orders at civilians who aren’t listening. I skim past burning buildings and around cars ditched in panicked angles across the road, taking it all in until it comes together in my mind.

I need to go wide, come up through the alley from the other side so I can show the others where to go.

I’m creeping around past the darts bar, and I’m almost at the other end of Rescue Alley when I hear a jagged crack behind me.

I whirl around, dropping to a knee and slamming my rifle in place. My finger is over the trigger when Jasper stumbles toward me, cursing.

Blood roars through my ears as I drop my gun.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whisper-shout at him.

Jasper sharply adjusts his shirt like it’s personally offended him, glowering at me.

“I’m sure if you gathered all two wits you possess and actually rubbed them together for a change, it might spark the understanding that I’m following you.”

Another wild spray of gunshots splashes the nearby street, and I shoot a glance up the darkened alley. It’s dirty and littered with broken beer bottles.

Over me, Jasper is unarmed. Perfectly tailored pants cup his ass like an openmouthed kiss, and dust stains his Manolo loafers. He eyes the dried vomit stains in the gutter with a grimace.

“Why the hell would you do that!” I burst out.

I stand up out of the puddle I knelt in.

I’m half sure it was piss.

Through the alley, I hear Dom booming at Beau to hurry his ass up, and I pause, torn.

Jasper stalks over to me, stepping through the piss puddle like he didn’t even see it. “I’m not letting you go running off, half-cocked, all alone. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

Ugh ! Civilians. I swear to fucking God. They see one James Bond movie.. .

My whole body is dancing with the need to move. I don’t have time to argue with him. He’s here. A pretty, painful liability who thinks I’m the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Let him see me in action for ten minutes.

Let him see more than the baby switch flirting with him from an overstuffed couch.

“No one’s getting killed.” Burying my frustration, I check my rifle, snapping off the safety, then shoot him a tight, irritated smirk. “And I’m only ever full-cocked, baby.”

Jasper gives me a long, decidedly unimpressed grimace, but I’m already sprinting toward the battlefield. When I reach the mouth of it, I edge my shoulder around the brick, peering out as Jasper comes up behind me.

As soon as I do, someone explodes around the corner, slamming into the wall on the opposite side of the alley. A heavy-set man catches himself against the brick, staggering to right himself, then looks up at us with a filthy, frightened face. He sees my gun.

“Please, no, I’m sorry.” He backs up before I can say anything, throwing a rattling bag at our feet. He holds his hands up pleadingly, a sob in his voice. “I didn’t mean to. Just take it! Take it! Don’t shoot!”

I bend down, picking up the bag full of assorted pills. Shit. Beau’s going to need this.

Jasper steps forward. “I assure you, sir, we have no intention of?—”

The man takes off running down the alley, sending cans scattering down the road, right as the gunfire heats up behind us.

“Beau, get them up! Move !” Dom shouts.

Them ?

Fuck.

I rip out of the alley to see bedlam. There are civilians behind cars, some crawling down the street. There are people hiding, people shooting, someone fumbling to load a pistol, someone trying to tourniquet their own arm.

From here, I can see Beau behind the Swiss-cheesed trash cans, finishing tying off a blood-bright bandage around a woman’s thigh as she tries to hold back her sobs. There’s a young girl, maybe three or four, curled up against her chest and squeezing a stuffed bear.

Jayk fires off twice at two men coming toward them, and they shoot back, badly.

He takes several threatening steps forward like a human tank, his skull tattoos twisting over his biceps.

“There’s a fucking kid here!” he bellows. He shoots at their feet twice more, then lifts it up to a head shot. “Back the fuck off.”

One of them jerks back, then drags at the other’s arms as they both take off.

They’re barely more than kids themselves.

Something crashes from inside the pharmacy, making the little girl squeal and dig into her mama, and that’s enough.

I raise my fingers to my lips and whistle sharply.

“Yo! Someone call a tour guide?” I call out to them, and Jayk pivots, locking eyes on me fast. I gesture with my head toward the alley. “Exit’s this way, babycakes.”

Jayk flips me off, but he whacks Dom on the back and Dom looks our way. Relief breaks over his features.

In moments, he’s sliding in beside Beau and they start getting the woman and her kid up—but as soon as he stops shooting, bodies start peeling out of the shadows, sensing their opportunity.

I start firing at the same time as Jayk, warning them back as Beau tugs the little girl off her mother, talking to her soothingly while Dom holds her back. Beau wraps the woman’s arm around his neck, and she leans heavily against him, biting her lip piercingly hard, her face scrunched in pain. He starts to drag her forward, but the little girl suddenly abandons her bear to tear free of Dom. She grabs at her mother’s dress with fierce, desperate, tiny hands.

“No! Mommy. Don’t go! Mommy!”

Dom slings his rifle and scoops up the crying, squirming girl, shielding her in his chest.

Then he runs.

He’s unarmed. He and Beau both. And as they take off, the shadowy figures close in on the pharmacy.

Which sets off a brutal burst of return fire from inside.

“Oh dear,” Jasper breathes.

I push out further, funneling shots erratically, more to scare the encroaching horde off than anything else. Jayk starts backing toward the alley, following more slowly behind them.

He rings on empty and curses.

Someone comes close to the trash cans, lifting their gun at him, and I fire at the cans, sending a box of old Chinese food splattering across the sidewalk. They reel back again, and Jayk turns and sprints toward me.

Beau is nearing the alley now, but Dom is struggling with the girl, who’s thrashing in pure panic.

“My bear! No, Mommy! I want my bear!”

My heart rips as Dom gets her to the alley. She’s sobbing like her world is broken. Like something’s been taken from her that she’s never going to get back. The most important thing she knows.

You just can’t take a kid’s bear away.

It’s family.

As soon as the others are clear, I unsling my rifle, then turn, shoving it into Jasper’s arms.

“Lucien, what are you doing?” Jasper’s voice is a lash behind me.

“Just a quick trip. It’ll take me two seconds,” I assure him. “Cover me!”

Jasper’s eyes widen, pools of dark panic in his pale face. He looks down at the rifle, fumbling as he turns it. “Stop. Lucien, I don’t know how to use this. Stop !”

But I’m already backing toward the trash cans. Toward the bear.

“Safety’s off, just point and shoot.” I consider that, then grin. “Just try to miss me, okay?”

“Lucien! No!” Jasper’s shout blisters my ears as I bolt in toward the goal.

Excitement sparkles through my veins, a purpose filling me. The girl gets it all. To be safe with everyone she loves. Her mom.

And her damn bear.

The ragged thing sits against one of the bins, some chow mein nestled into its fur.

Bingo .

I skid around a car as bullets crash to my left, one slicing whisper-close next to my cheek. The last half of the pharmacy window shatters open to my right a second later, and I dive to the ground, laughing riotously as sharp, sugary pieces crackle over me.

At this rate, I may lose the “not dying accidentally” game.

I crane my head around, checking on Jasper, to see him let off an unruly burst of shots ten feet away that makes him stagger back, and I snort into the ground.

Well, he tried.

I look back toward the trash cans and see the bear, one patched eye winking at me from a few feet away. This guy. No way can this ugly cutie get left behind.

People are rushing the pharmacy now, and at least one person steps on my ass as I’m forgotten about. There are a few more distant shots, but they’re quickly overtaken by the sounds of wrestling and overturning shelves.

I army crawl forward, until finally, the bear falls into my hands.

The little guy grins up at me.

Sitting up, I laugh again, pure, bright victory flooding me. I fucking did it. Sure, Beau saved a mother and Dom saved a kid, and Jayk saved all of them, but me? I saved Patchy. King of Bears.

Now that girl not only gets her ever after, but she gets to be happy in it, too.

I look back down at the alley, but I can’t see anyone, not with the angry swarm of people around me who clearly did not get the memo about this momentous moment.

I’m getting to my knees, brushing myself off, when I hear a low, resonant click.

A safety.

The metallic kiss of cold metal at my temple kills my victory vibes fast.

The frantic, shuddery way it clatters against my skin grinds them into the dirt.

Scared people do dangerous things.

“Give me the bag!” a man spits over me, sounding terrified.

Bag? My mind blanks for a split second before I remember the bag of pills the guy threw at me in the alley.

Ohhh, damn.

“Hey, man, it’s okay. We’re okay. I’m just going to—” I lift my hand toward the strap at my shoulder, and I only have a heartbeat for instinct to tell me to slam myself backwards before he shoots.

The muzzle flashes and the bright imprint almost blinds me. I blink rapidly, my heart racing, my head spinning as I lie on the ground, deafened, the bear in one hand.

Above me, the clouds part just enough to see stars twinkle.

He shot at me.

He’s going to?—

The gun goes off again, this time the bullet hits a few inches above my head, and the guy kicks me hard as I scramble back. His breathing is erratic, wild, and fear sets in, clutching at my throat.

“The bag!” he screams, shooting again.

I roll to the side as the ground explodes beside me, kicking out, and he staggers, but doesn’t drop the gun. He aims it at me again, and all I can see is muzzle.

Oh, shit.

Maybe I am no better at coping than Beau.

Reality hits me, sharp and sweet, and all the shouting and battle noise fades into nothing as I take a last breath.

I’m going to die.

With this bear.

With my parents.

I see the man’s mouth move, the unhinged spray of spit on his lips as he shouts again for the bag, but I don’t hear it. The shadowed inside of the muzzle of his gun lines up with my eye, but I don’t see it.

I only see Jasper leaning toward the glove compartment, his lips a breath from mine.

Then the man’s face explodes.

His cheek rips apart, his skull fragmenting, and blood spurts over me and Patchy like an unholy fountain.

A second later, he drops.

Stunned, I look up, and Jasper is still holding the rifle in a white-knuckled grip, his face dead white and stricken as he stares down at the body.

He covered me.

Stiltedly, I get to my feet.

“Jasper?” I ask, my voice a shocky hush.

Slowly, his eyes lift to mine. He’s shaking. I take the rifle from him—what he did, what I did, sinking in.

“Oh, God,” he whispers.

He killed someone.

He killed someone for me .

He killed someone for me because I thought it would be fun to save a stuffed bear .

Tears spring to my eyes as people rage around us, and my breath hitches. “You shouldn’t have done that. Jasper, fuck, I... I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry.”

Running on autopilot, I drag him away, and he follows woodenly until we’re under the half-cover of a truck.

“I covered you,” he whispers. He presses a hand to his mouth, then drags it down to his throat. He stares at me, his eyes running over every inch of my face, and at the naked terror there, I can’t help myself—I grab him, yanking him into a hug.

He freezes.

My heart is thundering, and his is hammering just as bad, but it only takes moments for them to fall into a rhythm. We’re alive. He’s okay.

My careful, safety-conscious indoor cat. Our glue, the one who keeps us all together when all this shit threatens to break him. The one who is meant to stay good and pure and safe.

I made him a killer.

Slowly, hesitantly, his arms close around me—and then he’s hugging me back like he never wants to stop. Close, fierce. He buries his face in my neck, and I feel the heated press of his body all along mine.

“I covered you. Damn it, Lucien, I thought I couldn’t. I thought you were going to die while I watched, but I did it. I covered you.” The words are mumbled and frantic, and I squeeze my eyes shut. Hot, shameful tears spill out onto his satin shirt.

He killed because of me. He was right about all of it, but I wouldn’t listen.

And now I’m ruining his shirt.

He makes a rough, choked sound against my neck, and I want to wither up and die for putting him here like this.

No wonder he wishes he never met me.

“Lucky, get your ass back to the convoy. Thomas needs help clearing a path for the cars!” Dom shouts from somewhere.

But I can’t let go of Jasper.

“You covered me. I’m okay,” I tell him.

He makes that choked sound again, and I frown, pulling back. Holding him by the shoulders, I try to see his face, wondering if he’s having a panic attack.

Jasper brings one hand up, squeezing the bridge of his nose—and he snorts, turning away. My mouth drops open as he clamps his lips shut, only for another wild, bursting laugh to shake free.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, clamping a hand over his mouth. Then he snorts again, bending over at his waist until his hair falls wildly out of its usual composure. His shoulders start shaking. “I’m?—”

I blink, then rub the back of my head. The stuffed bear blinks up at me, equally confused.

People have all kinds of reactions to their first kill.

Haven’t really seen a giggle fit before, though.

And if you’d asked me who would have had a giggle fit after their first, Jasper would be exactly last on that list.

“Um. Did I miss something?” I ask, attempting a smile as another snorting, uncontrolled bout of laughter overtakes him, and Jasper straightens wiping his eyes.

He waves a hand at me—and his smile might be the most beautiful, cursed thing I’ve ever seen.

“I covered you,” he repeats. His eyes travel over my hair and my face, then my clothes, and I look down, realizing just now exactly how drenched in blood and brain matter I am.

Ooh, not hot.

Then I get it.

“You covered me,” I say dryly, and this time we both start laughing. It keeps coming, in rolling, breathless, wheezing waves until tears are flowing over my cheeks, and he steps into me, pressing me against the car.

Then finally, the laughter peters out, and he just looks at me.

After a moment, he pulls out his pretty handkerchief from his pocket and he starts wiping at my cheeks, cleaning away the blood and shame and all the tears.

“You miserable, beautiful, foolish child,” he murmurs.

With the back of one finger, I brush his hair back into place.

“It’s going to be okay,” I whisper. “Even if they’re gone. We’ll get back to base. You’ll be safe.”

Slowly, the darkness begins to fall away from his face and a light glows in his eyes. My heart lifts at how pretty it is, how pretty he is, for just a moment before the strangeness of it hits.

Jasper’s eyes flick over my shoulder, and he straightens, his lips parting.

It shouldn’t be this bright.

I whip around just in time to see the whole world turn white.