Page 69 of Traitor
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ford
The last timeI had someone’s fate in my hands, I failed them. I won’t fail Peyton now. I can’t. Life has meaning again with her in it, and I’ll be damned if I lose her before I tell her that myself.
I manage to inch closer throughout our conversation. Without taking my eyes off Alice, I assess Peyton’s condition through my peripheral vision. My chest eases when she doesn’t seem to be hurt. A little worse for the wear, but she’s alive.
For now.
Knowing Alice wants to keep me in her sights, I inch around until Peyton is behind me—at least a little shielded from Alice’s view—and away from the gun she’d had pointed at her head. If we make it out of this, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase that image from my memory.
But I’ll spend every day trying.
“After it’s over, we’ll move on and forget. It’ll be like it never happened.” Alice says, then lunges forward, her eyes wild with madness, spittle flying from her open mouth. The gun is pointed in my direction, its barrel centered in my vision.
Time slows.
My thoughts quiet.
Before I can make a move, Peyton explodes into action, stunning both me and Alice, whose hold on the gun wavers. Peyton vaults over the fence, stumbling and losing her balance as her full weight lands on her bloodless legs. She tumbles into a heap with a moan. While Alice is distracted, I lock onto her waist and shove her against the opposite barrier.
“Go!” I shout to Peyton over Alice’s screams of protest. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Peyton gets to her knees, her lip bloody and bruised, her body covered in dust and grit. “What about you?” she asks.
“Go!” I repeat instead of answering, because I know it wouldn’t have been an answer she would have liked.
As Peyton takes her first steps, Alice lunges in my grasp, but Peyton is already bolting around the rock face, her footsteps pounding in the distance until they’re too faint to hear.
“You son of a bitch,” Alice growls. I pin her back against the rock wall, although only half of my attention is on her. The rest is straining to hear if Peyton is far enough away to be safe. Which is a critical error.
Only I realize it too late.
Alice drops down to her knees abruptly, causing me to lose my balance. We scrabble for control of the gun that skitters across the bumpy concrete. She reaches it first.
I see the decision in her eyes before she pulls the trigger. It’s been years since I’ve been shot, but goddamn it feels exactly like I remember. The bullet tears into my shoulder and I go down, spinning and crashing into the rock. The last thing I hear as I fade in and out of consciousness is the sound of Alice following Peyton.
I hear Cal shouting my name as clearly as I did the last night I saw him, when everything went to shit. The pain floods over me until I’m not sure where I am—or evenwhenI am. The gritty, earthy taste of dirt fills my mouth, my nose, seems to coat my lungs the way it used to when I was in the desert. It’s the memory of losing a brother, a life I’d been tasked to protect, that pulls me back to the present.
When I can find my voice, the first word that comes to mind is her name. I don’t know if I speak it or shout it, but it claws out of my throat, leaving it as raw as the wound in my shoulder.
I sit up too quickly, my head throbbing in protest. It feels like it’s going to collapse on itself, but pure instinct has me fighting against waves of nausea. With what remaining strength I have, I pull myself up. My right hand is near useless from the shoulder wound. I get to my feet by leveraging my weight onto my left side and hanging onto the fence post for dear life. My nerveless legs wobble like a fucking newborn deer, but I manage to stay upright.
My whole body aches and I’d rather be run over by a MACK truck than take another step, but I have to. All I can think of is Peyton’s face, bone white with fear, as she turned to flee.
With Alice, gun drawn and following close behind.
The inspiration of nightmares. My nightmares.
The very thing I’d fought so hard to keep from happening again, has happened.
I pull off my T-shirt one-handed, leaving me in a thin wifebeater soaked in my own blood, and rip a strip from the arm. I lose a lot of time wrapping the cloth around the still seeping wound, but I know if I don’t at least staunch the flow of blood, I’ll be useless. When it’s as bandaged as it’s going to be, I grit my teeth.
I inch my way up the path, supporting my weight against the handrail, thankful the shot had been a through and through, at least. Alice had been so blood-hungry, she hadn’t stopped to check and see if I was down for good. At least that’s one thing in my favor.
If Cal were really here, he’d tell me to man the fuck up. It’s just a scratch.
Because his voice still rings all too clearly in my ear, I white-knuckle it up the path, ignoring the pulsing burn emanating from my shoulder. My ears strain for signs of life, for anything. But it’s as quiet as a funeral. The kind of quiet that makes all my not-so-forgotten instincts light up like crazy.