by Zoey Parker
In that first wave bodies crumpled to the floor. Kellan couldn’t keep track of who was down and who was fighting. All he could smell was blood and gunpowder.
His first thought went to Emma. Was she okay? Did Gabriel already have her? In the moment of hesitation that these thoughts fostered, a slug grazed his shoulder. Pain, sharp and hot, pulsed across his hip.
“Get down!” someone yelled at him.
Kellan took cover behind the heavy wooden pool table. Pieces of oak and green velvet peppered the air. The sound of men screaming was second only to the deafening burst of gunfire. Out of instinct, rather than thought, Kellan went for his own gun. The cold, heavy weight of the pistol was a small comfort in comparison to whatever it was Gabriel’s minions were wielding.
He would rather have had a rifle. He was good with a rifle. It was the one good thing his father had done. For a moment all he could think of was that cougar sunning herself on a rock, her big eyes blinking slowly.
He rolled to one side, his shoulder hitting the ground. He tried not to think about the fact that there was a puddle of dark blood beneath his shoulder as he aimed the gun and fired. The first bullet wasn’t intended for one of the shooters, it was for the fluorescent bulbs above them. The second was for the glass windows behind them. The shooters flinched as shards of glass fell down around them. It wasn’t much, but it was just enough that his men could return fire.
He leveled his gun again and took another shot. The gun jerked and he saw blood bloom on the shirt of one of the men. His eyes went wide enough behind the dark of his sunglasses that Kellan could see a flicker of white above the lenses. He shot again, and the man’s head rocked back. The shades flew in an arc, shattering against the broken window.
Wild cursing caught Kellan’s attention. He chanced a look to his left. Vinny had managed to get behind the bar where the best of the weapons were stock piled. His thick hands hefted a 12-gauge double-barrel shotgun. Blood was pouring down one side of his face, and glistening in the gray streak of his beard. The telltale sound of the pump seemed to echo through the din. The flash was like a firework. The boom of it rocked the room, and Kellan’s ears began to ring.
The second shooter flew backwards. Vinny fired again. His body, half off the ground, flopped backwards with a boneless grace. His body hit the ground, but his hand spasmed on the trigger, and a fresh wave of bullets split the air.
More glass shattered as the dead man’s gun decimated the bar. The thick scent of alcohol joined the musk of fire and death. Vinny’s body fell. Blood arced through the air, staining the bar.
The gun continued to fire until there were no more bullets. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but it stretched like an eternity. Kellan wasn’t sure he was going to survive, that any of them were going to survive, but all he could think about was Emma.
Would she mourn him? Would she cry at his funeral the way she had at her father’s? No, probably not. She’d probably spit on his coffin for all the terrible things he had said to her. Leon had been right. Kellan was an idiot for pushing her away. He was never going to find someone like her again. Gabriel was going to get to her.
That thought rocked him. The edge of the pool table collapsed, and the shiny resin balls clattered next to him. The cool touch of them against his hand felt vaguely surreal. Could anything be cold in the heat of battle?
“Dad! Dad!”
The sound of Rudy’s voice was the first thing Kellan heard when the ringing in his ears subsided. Rudy dove next to Leon’s body.
There was a difference in the way a live body laid on the ground versus a dead one. There was more space with a live body, all those muscles working to keep a person in a rigid line. When someone was dead, well and truly dead, there was nothing holding them up. Nothing that kept every inch of the flesh from hitting the ground.
Kellan didn’t need to check to know Leon was dead. He wasn’t the only one.
Not many had survived the first round of shots, and even fewer had seen the fight all the way to the end. Vinny’s oversized form was found in a puddle of liquor, blood, and other bodily fluids. His face was slack, and his eyes had rolled back until all anyone could see was white.
“Shit,” Kellan cursed. “Joe.”
It seemed somehow more wrong to find Joe with his back against the wall, a pair of Barettas in his hands. Leon and Vinny had put in their time and had long since believed the life was going to claim them. Joe hadn’t. He was a business boy playing at being criminal. Kellan had always assumed he’d go crawling back to his wealthy dad or that heiress.
The wounds were clustered in his belly, and already there was a smell. Kellan knew enough about hunting to know when a person’s bowels had been hit. It wasn’t a good death, it was a long and lingering one where a man’s own waste slowly poisoned him.
“Kellan,” he coughed. Blood splattered onto his lips. “We get them?”
Kellan glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, buddy, we got them.”
Joe reached out one of his hands. Kellan took it. The grip was stronger than he expected. There weren’t even calluses under the layer of blood. “Good,” he nodded. “Very good.”
He shifted his shoulder. The gun in his other hand clattered to the ground. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out his wallet. It took more effort than it should have for Joe to open it, and shake a picture out of the folds. It was a woman, and Kellan didn’t need to see the back to know it was Barbie.
“Her address is on the back. Send her a letter for me. Tell her I’m sorry, sorry for everything.”
Kellan couldn’t speak. A lump had grown in his throat. He just nodded and tucked the picture into his pocket. “I can do that.”
“Don’t let her go,” Joe said. “Don’t you dare.”
They both knew Joe wasn’t talking about Barbie. His GQ cover boy face was set in stern lines. A sheen of gray was crawling up his neck. He coughed again. His stomach jerked with the movement and he shook.
“I need you to do me another favor.”
“You’re asking a lot for a prospect.” Kellan tried to keep his voice as light as possible. It didn’t work.
“Shoot me.”
At first Kellan thought that Joe was asking as a joke. It wasn’t until he started to laugh that he realized that Joe was being serious.
“Oh, man.” Kellan looked down. “I don’t—”
“What are you going to do, pres?” he asked motioning limply to his belly. “Take me to the hospital?”
“They might be able to—”
Joe let out a bark of laughter, empty of humor. It was empty of everything but fatalistic knowledge. “If you don’t, I will, and no one wants to see that.”
Joe dumped one of his guns into Kellan’s hand. It felt heavier than it should, as if it was made of something besides metal.
“Just not in the face.” Joe smirked.
“Whatever you say, pretty boy.”
He wrapped his finger over the trigger and pointed it at Joe’s heart. His hand shook just a little as he took the shot. Joe jerked suddenly, nearly coming off the ground. His hand squeezed around Kellan’s. He felt his bones grate together as a death spasm rocked through the other man’s body. Then Joe fell back to the ground with a mortal plank. His legs shook as his body struggled to stay alive for just a few seconds longer.
He didn’t know how long he was staring at Joe’s dead body when a very pale hand tapped him on the shoulder. There was a lot of blood on Phantom’s shirt, but as far at Kellan could see none of it belonged to the boy. He stood there silently. The perfect soldier waiting for an order to act.
“Who’s left?” Kellan asked.
“Rudy,” he said, “and me.”
Twenty minutes ago there were fifteen men in this room. Fifteen men who Kellan had laughed with, drank with, and partied with. Now most of them were dead.
Kellan pulled out his cell. The battery was flashing an uncaring red. He shoved it back in his pocket.
“Rudy,
call Emma. See if she’s okay.” Kellan stood up. “Phantom, get all the weapons you can, pull a truck around. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. The cops will be here soon, and we need to be gone.”
The two of them jumped to carry out the orders. Kellan racked his mind as he decided what they were going to do. The first thought that popped into his mind was simple, and brutal. He wanted to hit Gabriel back. He wanted to blow that little mansion in the mountains to pieces and make Gabriel walk through the bodies and the blood of the people he had trusted the most. It wasn’t a good thought, but it was the one keeping him breathing.
A few minutes later Rudy came back. “Emma’s not picking up. I got ahold of Hannah. Apparently she went back to her dad’s place.”
“Why?” Kellan demanded. “Why would she go there?”
Rudy couldn’t quite meet Kellan’s eyes. “She said the two of you fought, that she wanted some space to figure things out. Hannah is trying to get ahold of her now.”
“Gabriel’s got eyes on that place,” Phantom said.
“Does she know that?” Rudy asked.
Kellan felt a wave of cold hate wash through him when he said, “No.”
Chapter 13
When Emma left Hannah’s house, she stopped at Kellan’s long enough to pack just what she would need. Then she took the dog with her. Part of it was the fact that she didn’t know how long he would be gone, and part of it was that she was feeling just a little petty. Rocco was a great dog, and he deserved great treatment. Kellan didn’t know how to treat anything nicely. It was a shame to waste such a good dog on that low life jerk.
“Come on, big fella,” she said as she closed the door to her father’s house behind her. The sound of it echoed through the living room. She had a grocery bag in one hand, and his leash in the other. She dropped the leash. “Let’s get you something to eat.”
Someone had cleaned up the place. It didn’t smell like cigarettes or medication anymore. It smelled like fake lemons and ammonia. Rocco huffed his dislike and snuffled around the carpet, looking for a place that smelled like him. His leash trailed behind him like a thick ribbon of dark red.
Emma let him explore while she went to the kitchen. She set the big paper bag down on top of the counter and opened the fridge. It had been completely cleaned out. There wasn’t even a ring on the lowest shelf where her father used to keep his favorite beers. For some reason, that seemed wrong. She pushed it away. This wasn’t her father’s place anymore; it was hers. She could sell it or pass it along, or whatever she wanted to do. At this moment all she wanted to do was make something for dinner and then go to bed. Her eyes hurt from crying.
Not that Kellan deserved any tears. Oh no. She had plenty of other reasons to cry. A chip in her nonexistent nail polish was worth more tears than that criminal.
Her phone rang. She glanced down at the ID and saw it was Hannah.
“Hey, girl,”
“Hey, Brains, did you get to your dad’s okay?”
“Your timing is ridiculous. I just got here. I did not crash my car. I told you I wouldn’t. It was only two glasses of wine.” Emma paused. “Wait, if I’m Brains, what does that make you?”
“Beauty, of course,” Hannah teased.
Emma smirked. It felt good to smile. “Gee, thanks.”
“Did you grab a bunch of horrible things to eat?”
Emma pulled items out of her grocery bag and laid them out on the counter. “I have a box of assorted chocolates, mint chocolate chip ice cream, the good root beer that comes in the brown bottles, watermelon gummy rings, and some of those frozen French bread pizza things with everything on them.”
“Oh, that’s the stuff.”
“I even stopped by the Red Box and picked up a couple of movies.” She pulled one more box out of the bag, but didn’t bother to relay its contents. There were some things Hannah didn’t really need to know.
“Chick flicks?”
Emma snorted. “I got The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the remake of course. The Conjuring. And something called Vampire Sorority Girls. I fully expect that last one to be terrible.”
“Horror?” Hannah sounded confused. “You got a bunch of horror flicks?”
Emma started preheating the oven. “Yeah, they make me feel better.”
Her father’s life had been packed into cardboard boxes and Tupperware containers large enough to fit an entire body. Someone, Hannah probably, had left the lids open so Emma could go through the memories and decide which ones she wanted to keep, and which ones went on to the thrift store. She pawed through one of them, looking for a glass.
“Sweetie, that’s weird.”
Emma laughed. “Why? Because I’d rather see a bunch of idiots get chopped up than watch some pretty boy lie about being super in love with some pretty girl?”
Hannah waited a beat. “All right, you may have a point there.”
“Besides, it’s not like I don’t have a great big fuzzy guard dog to keep me company.” Emma plopped a glass down on the counter and filled it with ice from the automatic dispenser and spilled the contents of one brown bottle into the cup.
“Holy shit, you took Rocco?”
Emma looked through the boxes that were sitting on the dinning room table. After a moment she found a cookie sheet. It was nearly as old as she was. There was a single black ring in one corner where she had burnt a peanut butter cooking to smithereens when she’d been a little girl. She traced her finger over it. “I didn’t take him. I’m watching him. I’ll take him back whenever I know Kellan is done being a big poo-head.”
“Poo-head? Really. Honey, I know you know how to curse better than that.”
“He doesn’t deserve better than that,” Emma growled. Rocco glanced up at her.
“Wow, he really made you mad.” Hannah’s voice rang with empathy. “I know you care about him.”
“I love him. Hell, I didn’t mean to love him. I just…I just do.”
“I know. What are you going to do about it?”
Emma picked up the box and stared down at it. “I don’t know, Han. I really don’t.”
Hannah made a sympathetic sound. “You don’t have to decide right now, Emma. Take the night. Take a few nights. Curl up with your bloody movies, your junk food, and the dog and don’t even worry about him.”
“I will.”
“Did you want me to come over?”
Emma shook her head, even though Hannah couldn’t see it. “Not tonight. But maybe we can go shopping tomorrow? The estate checks from all my dad’s stuff have been deposited into my account. I could splurge and get my hair done and find a sexy dress.”
“Oh, now that’s the spirit.” Hannah laughed. “How about one-thirty? I can drop the little ones off at my sister’s and we can even catch a movie and do a late lunch or early dinner. Whatever comes with margaritas.”
“That sounds perfect. Wear comfy shoes. I plan on running up a bill.”
Hannah made a heady sound. “I love it when a woman talks about bad financial choices.”
Emma laughed. The preheat timer on the oven dinged its readiness. “All right, I’m going to pour myself into a junk food comma.”
“All right, call me if you need anything.”
“I will. Night.”
“Night.”
They hung up. Emma slid a pizza onto the tray and into the over. She let Rocco out into the backyard to run around and relieve himself. Then she plucked her last purchase off the counter and stared down at it.
The box was plain white and just a little longer than her hand. One corner boasted a positive sign, another had a negative one. In the middle were the words Early-sign Pregnancy Test’. Beneath that it continued with, Can be used up to three days before a missed period.
Emma took a deep breath. She was well beyond three days past her missed period. It was heading on day nine. It wasn’t that she’d never missed a cycle before. It happened. She pretty much expected it during finals week, but this was different. She had never
been sleeping with anyone during the months before finals week. She knew that unless she was carrying the next baby Jesus that her missed period was all stress related, not pregnancy related. Maybe she was worrying too much about it. Emma had every reason to be stressed out.
She also knew she’d been having round after round of wild lovemaking for the past few weeks. She ripped the plastic off the box and headed for the bathroom.
She never knew ten minutes could take so damn long. The pizza was going to take longer than this. Emma paced the small square of her bathroom floor and waited.