For the Love of Beard

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Aaron, and three other cops—who’d been off duty as of ten minutes ago—followed me out.

  Chapter 19

  May your coffee kick in before reality does.

  -Coffee Cup

  Ghost

  After my father was put in prison, it never crossed my mind that I would be worried about my sister again.

  I thought that the only threat to her had been eliminated, and that without that threat around, I wouldn’t have to worry about her like I used to.

  I was wrong.

  After Big Papa had called with the news that there was an officer down, and that my sister was in the middle of it, I knew that that officer was Fender. Knew from the tightness clamping down on my heart that it was and that I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it but hope that everything was okay.

  But I still rode like a bat out of hell to the scene.

  After turning on my radio, I heard the distressed calls that the dispatcher was relating to the other officers, who luckily stayed off the radio while chaos ensued around them.

  And when I arrived five minutes, after the call from Big Papa, it was to find multiple other officers on scene, all behind their police cars with their guns in their hands.

  I shut my bike off about a quarter mile back, and looked at what was happening around me.

  From what I could tell, Fender had pulled someone over.

  That car was in the median ahead, up on its side. Another car was across the expanse of the highway, front end crushed and also up on its side.

  The sight that made me absolutely sick was the sight of the rear end of the cruiser. It was almost to the back seat, folded like a fucking accordion.

  The lights were still flashing, casting an eerie blue and red haze over the immediate area, and cars were pulled over here and there, dotting the medians of the highway.

  None of them were out in front of the cars.

  But the reason why was answered moments later when an officer pulled up and got out, only to be shot at moments later.

  “Fuck!” I hissed.

  Big Papa, who’d been behind his car on his knee, turned to look at me.

  Though we weren’t close, we were close enough that I could see his hand signals.

  With a nod, I started to run back down the highway, past the surprised men and women who were huddle behind their cars, and then started to veer off where the road curved, straight into the woods that lined the highway.

  Once covered by the woods, I made my way from tree-to-tree and only stopped once I was close enough to see inside the police cruiser.

  My sister was slumped there, blood pouring down her face, looking for all the world as if she were already dead.

  My eyes caught movement in the grass, and that’s when I saw Fender army crawling toward the shooter, his service weapon in his hand, and a pissed off expression on his face.

  His legs were dragging behind him, and he wasn’t using them at all.

  The blood trail that followed in his wake was likely the reason why.

  I moved hastily toward the cruiser, stopping and kneeling once I reached the door, and waited.

  Another cruiser pulled up on scene, this one from two counties over, and the shooting started up again.

  “Brenda! Please stop! Please!” a frantic man cried out in frustrated rage. “You’re going to kill us!”

  This Brenda bitch was about to feel the smack that I was going to lay down, she just didn’t know it yet.

  Chapter 20

  Opinions are like orgasms. Women’s are more important, and they don’t really care if you have one.

  -Fact of Life

  Tobias

  I couldn’t feel my legs.

  I couldn’t feel my right hand, and I was fairly sure that there was a blood trail tailing along behind me from where I was army crawling, using only the strength in my upper body, to pull me toward the fucking mangled car.

  I knew with one muttered curse from the man, and the angry woman’s reply of ‘shut up!’ that the two people in the car that had hit my cruiser, with my woman inside, had been none other than the Shaws.

  Hadn’t they fucked up my life enough? Now they had to kill my fucking girlfriend—soon to be fiancée—and shoot me?

  Though, from what little I could see, the only one shooting was Brenda. Whether that was because Ephraim was hurt and couldn’t shoot or because he wasn’t a willing participant in this whole clusterfuck was yet to be determined.

  However, I could hear him yelling at her to calm down, but she hadn’t figured out how to do that just yet, as evidenced by the gun that continued to sound each time another vehicle showed up.

  I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t looked behind her yet, because if she had, she would’ve seen me crawling toward her.

  Whether it was due to the fact that she’d thought she’d killed me, or because she was confident that nothing would show up behind her from the woods at her back, I didn’t know.

  Whatever her reasons for not watching her six were, I didn’t care. I just counted my blessings and started to crawl across the asphalt toward the car that was up on its side.

  Every single move I made sent a shooting pain into my hand, but what worried me wasn’t the pain. It was the fact that I felt absolutely nothing in my legs. No heat. No pain. No nothing.

  Just an oblique blankness that not only alarmed me, but it also sent shivers of fear slithering down my spine.

  I’d been shot before. Not once, but three times. All of them had been minor in comparison to what I was feeling now.

  A weird sort of resignation started to settle into my bones, and I had a few moments of regret as I made the last four yards to the car by sheer force of will.

  As I came to a stop, a wave of dizziness rolled over me, filling me with what could only be described as acceptance.

  This was it.

  I was about to die.

  I’d performed countless missions as a Navy SEAL. I’d been through two deployments. Firefights. Bombings. You name it, I’d been through it.

  I’d never thought that I would die like this. I’d thought I would go out in a bang of glory, shooting my way out of a sticky situation.

  Yet, I was going to die lying flat on my stomach, while I tried to get the attention of a woman yielding a fucking AR-15.

  If I could get her to poke her head out of the car enough, I knew that the police officers would be able to take the shot.

  I knew that, at least, one of the men on the other side of the line had a sniper rifle.

  Brenda wouldn’t even know what hit her.

  But as I started to beat on the one thing I could reach, the tire, I realized that it was hard to hear anything over the gunfire that was still sounding through the air around me.

  Resigning myself with what I had to do next, I palmed my gun in my left hand—the one that I only ever practiced with if something were to happen to my shooting hand—and grimaced.

  I’d never thought I’d have to actually utilize the skills, but again, I found myself surprised.

  I crawled another few inches forward, and my gun clinked against the asphalt, sounding loud in the gap between gunfire.

  “Did you hear that?”

  I winced at Brenda’s suddenly sharp, raised voice.

  “No, I can’t hear a goddamn thing because you’re shooting that rifle in my ear,” Ephraim bellowed. “You’re going to die. I’m going to have to watch you die. Your daughter’s going to be devastated. She’s just gotten to Germany, only now she’ll have to turn around and attend your goddamn funeral.”

  Brenda said something in reply, but Ephraim interrupted her before she could finish.

  “I don’t know why I should be surprised by this. You knew all along that our son was a fuckin’ rapist, and I supported you even when I knew you were wrong. Supported you through his death. I loved him, but he did wrong, Brenda. You can’t fault someone for something that they were d
oing to protect their own sister. You need to calm down. You need to put the gun down, and then you need to pray that this isn’t going to escalate into full out prison time. My heart’s not good, and you’re making it worse.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  That I heard, and I wanted to applaud Ephraim for his passionate speech. Oh, and finally having the balls to stand up to his wife.

  There was nothing wrong with supporting your wife and child. That’s how many wars were started. You believe in your family, almost to the point of recklessness. It’s human nature to want to protect your child.

  What is not human nature is to support a child so much that you’re willing to take on the police to do it when there is no possible route of escape.

  Even if she did manage to get me out of the equation, she wasn’t getting away with this. Her son would still be dead, and she’d be in prison because she killed a police officer.

  I crawled forward a little more, this time not bothering to conceal the sound of my movement, and Brenda’s head appeared over the side of the car that was still in the air.

  With it up on its side, the roof protected her at her front, and the undercarriage of the car at her back, meaning she thought she was safe…but she wasn’t.

  I raised my gun and aimed it at her face.

  “Drop the gun over the side and put your hands in the air,” I told her, my finger tightening almost imperceptibly on the trigger.

  She ducked back underneath the cover the car created, and then came back up. Only, she didn’t drop the gun. Instead, she confirmed my fears, and aimed the weapon directly at my chest.

  Before she could even squeeze the first shot off in my direction, the entire late afternoon sky lit up with gunfire. And none of it came from me.

  ***

  Audrey

  My head hurrrrrrt.

  Oh, God.

  I’d never even been drunk before, yet hitting my head felt like something akin to death.

  “Tobias?” I called out, barely opening my eye to take a look at my surroundings.

  What had woken me? Better yet, what had happened to give me the mother of all headaches?

  Nothing looked familiar…not at first.

  It took me seeing the lights flashing on the console of what I assumed to be Tobias’ police cruiser, as well as the computer lying in a crumpled heap against my leg, to realize where I was.

  “Tobias?” I called out, a little more loudly this time.

  There was no answer, and it was then that I saw the spider webbing of the glass belonging to what was left of the windshield.

  A really bad feeling started to roll through me, and I swallowed, ready to call out once again, when movement from the door I was obviously leaning on had me nearly toppling out of the car.

  The only thing that held me secure was the seat belt, which was only attached around my waist, and a hand that came up to catch me before I could hit the floor.

  “Don’t move, honey.”

  My breathing hitched as I heard my brother’s voice.

  Even after all this time, it was still such a soothing sound to hear. Not because he had a nice voice, because that was for sure not the case, but because I’d never thought I would hear it ever again.

  “Tunnel,” I whispered, my lips thick and tongue even thicker. “What’s happening?”

  I could hear a rhythmic pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, but I didn’t pay it much attention while I opened my eyes even wider and stared at my brother expectantly.

  “You were in an accident,” he said. “I’m going to cut you free of the belt,” he said. “It might hurt. Your head’s got a large gash on it, and you probably have a concussion.”

  That explained why my head was throbbing so badly.

  “Okay,” I cleared my throat. “Where’s Tobias?”

  I was in his cruiser, after all. It only made sense that he was somewhere around.

  “Cutting,” Tunnel grunted, pulling out the knife he always held on his person, and cut me free of my restrictions.

  When I started to fall, Tunnel caught me up in his arms, and then immediately started to carry me off into the woods—not the way that I would’ve expected him to move me.

  “Tunnel?” I repeated.

  “Shhh,” he hissed. “Don’t talk.”

  Then he crouched down, and leaned me up against the tree.

  “I think you might need an ambulance,” he said. “Your eyes are so dilated that I can’t even see the iris. Does anything else hurt besides your head?”

  He pulled off his shirt and pressed the white fabric against my head, making me wince.

  “No,” at least I didn’t think so.

  And why wasn’t he answering my questions?

  Which apparently, I’d voiced aloud since Tunnel answered me.

  “Because you’re not ready to hear the answers,” he said. “And I will…just not yet. Can’t have you going off all half-cocked like you used to do when we were younger.”

  I glared at him. It would’ve been a whole lot more intimidating had he been looking at me at the time of the glare, but he was too busy looking at something over my shoulder.

  “Tunnel,” I said again. “Tell me what’s going on?”

  So what if I had to puke each time I said a word. I could handle whatever he had to tell me.

  Which I tried to relay to him while he held my gaze for a few long moments, before seeming to come to a decision.

  “You were in an accident, and the person that hit you is now holding the police at bay by shooting anyone that comes within twenty yards of the cars.”

  I blinked.

  “You got here,” I pointed out.

  He nodded. “I came through the woods. Had to run about a quarter mile back down the highway only to double back once I reached a bend in the road that would conceal my movements into the wood line.”

  That made a sick sort of sense.

  “And Tobias?” I asked nervously this time.

  He had to be okay. He had to be okay.

  He shook his head. “He’s hurt. I saw him crawling toward the car that was acting as a shield to the car that the shooters are in,” he answered. “He didn’t look good, but at the time, he was still conscious.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “At the time?”

  He nodded again.

  “He’s hurt. Really bad, by my guess.”

  “Oh, God,” I replied shakily, blowing out a breath. “Go help him.”

  He stared for a few long seconds.

  “I’ll be okay,” I whispered. “Do you want my gun?”

  He laughed at me, then got up and walked away, disappearing from my sight in the next moment, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts, and the bursts of gunfire that broke through the silence every few seconds.

  Shit.

  It felt like hours later when the shooting started.

  And not anywhere near the same sounding as the shooting that I’d heard earlier. Not the steady pop-pop-pop.

  This one was a rapid staccato of shots. Not just one gun. Many guns.

  I had no earthly idea, until later, just how many guns went off.

  More like twenty would be my guess.

  Whatever happened, I wouldn’t care.

  Not at first, anyway.

  After hearing all those shots, and then nothing but silence, I didn’t much think there was anything left to happen.

  So I got up, despite the way my head throbbed in protest, and started forward.

  My concern for Tobias was enough to have me loudly trudging through the woods, barely missing tripping over the fallen branches that Tunnel had so easily carried me over earlier.

  I’d just reached the tree line, finally able to see the road in front of me, and blanched when I saw the cruiser I’d come from.

  It was bad.

  The trunk was just gone.

  There was nothing left of it at all.

  An
d the back seat…had there been someone in there at the time of the crash…I shook my head. They’d be nothing more than pulverized meat.

  And then I saw the body lying on the pavement, and everything but Tobias was forgotten.

  I didn’t once think about the people surrounding the area, or if there was any more danger.

  The only thing I had eyes for was Tobias.

  My heart was pounding in my chest as I ran, jumping onto the usually busy road and finding nothing there to hinder my path but bits and pieces of stray car parts strewn across the highway.

  Something crunched underneath my feet, but again, I didn’t stop.

  Not until I was skidding to a stop next to Tobias.

  His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow.

  His face was pale, and I cried out in pain and frustration.

  “Toab,” I took in the length of his body, noting the red stains that were bleeding into one big one on both sides of his legs. “Oh, God.”

  Something touched my arm, and I looked up to find Tobias’ staring at me.

  “You look like Carrie,” he said. “It’s the blood on your face and running down your shirt.”

  His eyes took in the length of my body, much the same way as I’d just done to him, and he stopped on something in the middle of my chest.

  His hand came up, and he ran one large finger over it.

  I looked down, too, and paled when I saw the hole in my Kevlar vest.

  “What’s that?” I asked, poking the same spot he’d just fingered.

  “Gun…”

  I looked up, expecting him to finish his sentence, only to see his eyes rolling back in his head as his body started convulsing.

  I screamed.

  ***

  We arrived at the ER thirty minutes later.

  Tobias was rolled into surgery immediately after that, Tommy Tom, doing chest compressions.

  That was the last clear view I had of him.

  He’d been lying on the gurney.

  One arm was dripping blood from his fingertips, and falling off the side of the gurney.

  His head had been held still by the paramedics yellow cervical collar, and he’d had a tube down his throat with a nurse running beside the gurney—another Dixie Warden’s wife—Tommy Tom’s wife—doing his breathing for him.