He looked pale now, instead of red-faced like before, but his hair was damp with sweat and the fury in his eyes had turned into something a lot less sane.
He looked like he’d snapped, honestly, like a rabid dog about to bite.
Either way, I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.
I waited for him to reach for my wrists, leaning closer in the process. He took his hand off his injured side to do it, still gripping the gun...
When I swung my handcuffed hands back and up, hitting him hard under the chin with my balled fists, the heavier eyebolt and the metal of the cuffs themselves.
I moved sideways as I did it and half-fell out of the car.
I kept my balance...barely, half on my feet now and leaning on the broken door. I came the rest of the way out of my crouch and moved forward, right as he swung the gun up again. Before he could aim it at me, I slammed him again with the handcuffs and the now-swinging eyebolt. My arms landed hard on his hand and wrist that time. I forced the gun down even as it went off, the sound echoing loudly inside the car.
Evers didn’t let go of the gun, so I hit him again, swinging my arms around with all of my weight. I got him full in the face with the eyebolt that time, and hit him with it again before he could recover, whipping it around and really putting my waist into it.
That time, he went down.
His fingers loosened, too, and the gun disappeared somewhere under the car.
I didn’t wait. I was past taking chances.
Once he was down, I used the heel of my foot to stomp on his throat.
Evers’ baby-blues bugged out like two marbles, even as his cut hands and fingers clawed uselessly at his own throat. He gasped for air like a beached fish, and I kicked him again in the side, then in the crotch, if only to buy myself time. Looking around for something heavier to hit him with, I found a good-sized rock, which I hefted in both hands, again having a déjà vu to that fight in Nik’s home dimension.
I didn’t wait that time, either, but hefted that thing up awkwardly with the cuffs and slammed it down on his head.
Full-on, yeah. Probably homicidal, even.
But I wasn’t taking any chances.
Once I was relatively sure he was down for the count, I looked for the gun.
I had to crawl halfway under the car to get it. It was hard with the cuffs, and with my ankles still tied together. By the time my fingers wrapped around the handle, I was panting, adrenaline causing spikes of panic in my whole body, pooling in my gut like battery acid.
I gripped the gun tighter...
Then a big hand wrapped my ankle.
I let out a cry.
The guy was like something out of a horror movie...something that couldn’t be killed.
But I couldn’t think about that, either.
He yanked me out from under the car, holding my ankle in a death grip.
Kicking and trying to fight him off, I twisted my body around under the car as he brought me back out into the sunlight. When he did, I saw him standing there, grinning at me with bloody teeth, my ankle gripped in his hand where he’d bent over to grab me.
I heard Jazzy scream, even as I grew aware of the silence around us otherwise. I didn’t know if it was in my head or what, but I couldn’t hear Razmun anymore...or the other dinosaur-like lizard who’d been fighting him out in the middle of that field.
All I could hear was Jazzy screaming...and the panting, gasping breaths of the psycho who now gripped my ankle like it was some kind of lifeline.
My eyes were filled with his face again. Blood ran down it in a thicker stream, dripping over his eyebrows and onto his cheeks, smearing over his mouth even apart from the bloody teeth. His eyes stared into mine like some kind of animal.
He yanked on my ankle again, harder that time, straightening as he did it, and I twisted the rest of the way to my back, protecting my face with one arm as I left the protective undercarriage of the SUV. I didn’t let go of the gun.
When I cleared the bottom of the car entirely, I fired.
I just lay there for a moment afterwards.
I ended up firing two times more after that first one, but the first shot was what would be burned into my brain.
I’d hit him in the face, enough to erase most of his nose and one of his cheeks. I’d forgotten about the armor-piercing bullets, but I think it would have shocked me, regardless.
The second two shots got him somewhere in the chest.
By then, he was already falling to his back.
He swayed first, before he fell. I remember that, too.
I guess I must have been in shock, because like I said, for what felt like a long couple of minutes––but likely was only a few seconds––I didn’t move. Panting, still gripping the gun in both of my cuffed hands, I stared up at the darkening sky, fighting to pull my mind back on line, to think. I continued to hold the weapon up, aimed at nothing now.
Then a voice reached me.
“Dakota,” it said.
It was calm, almost firm.
I blinked, but I could still only see the blue sky overhead. I also saw one cloud, tinted with orange and pink, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.
For a long moment, I only stared up at that sky.
“Dakota,” the voice said again.
I turned my head, and saw a shadow standing there. I didn’t move as the shadow approached, nor when it bent down, somewhere near my feet, and appeared to be doing something. Something to whatever lay there, on the ground. I heard the rustling of clothes, then what sounded like a soft metallic clink...like keys.
A few minutes later, the shadow returned.
It knelt right next to me that time, bending over my head and upper body. I watched numbly as he moved, catching hold of my wrists. I was still holding the gun when he did something to the handcuffs there, using the pieces of metal I’d heard clinking together before. Keys, my mind reminded me. I watched as he spun the pointed end inside the small lock.
I watched as those cuffs opened.
Then Nik moved down to my ankles, and did the same thing.
Exhaling, I met his gaze when he glanced back at me that time, feeling my mind click back on line, all at once. I dropped the gun on the dirt next to me, and laid back on the grass.
“Nik,” I said, my voice close to a groan. “That better really be you this time.”
“It is me,” he assured me.
He didn’t need to tell me that, though.
Not only did he not have a bloody hole in his chest, like Razmun, but I could see him there, in his eyes. Maybe I could even feel him through the lock link between us. Either way, I believed him without question, and something in my chest relaxed even further.
“Razmun?” I said, still lying in the patchy grass and dirt.
“He escaped,” Nik said calmly. “I would have chased him, but I heard a gunshot, so I came here instead.”
I nodded, wrapping an arm over my eyes and sighing again.
“Gantry?” I said.
“On his way,” he assured me. “Are you all right, Dakota?”
I removed my arm, looking up at his worried face. For the first time, I realized he was completely naked, and covered in cuts and bruises, pretty much from head to foot.
“Nik,” I said, feeling a weird combination of relief and frustration. “What happened to you?”
“I will tell you all of that,” he assured me. He glanced up then, towards the open door of the car. “I think they are very confused. The young humans,” he clarified.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
Even so, it was the thing to get me to drag my sorry ass off the dirt and back onto my feet. I couldn’t help wincing and gasping as I did, holding my ribs with my free hand as I gripped the car door with the other, looking inside the dimmer interior.
“You both all right?” I asked them.
Two pairs of round eyes greeted me, the pupils nearly swallowing the color of their irises. They both looked pale, in shock
...but I noticed they barely looked at me at all. They were staring at a very naked Nik instead, as if looking at a ghost. Realizing they’d seen “Nik” get shot in that farmhouse by Evers, I smiled at them reassuringly, then clicked my fingers in front of their faces, trying to get them to focus on me.
“Hey,” I said, gentling my voice that time. “You both okay? Not hurt are you?”
My words appeared to distract them at least.
They looked down at their own bodies, then at each other’s, as if trying to answer my question. I looked them over, too, and decided they were probably in pretty good shape, despite the bruises, the cuts on their faces, necks, arms and hands from flying glass, and the near-inevitable visit to the psychiatrist that would follow for both of them after this little jaunt.
In the short term, I needed them to chill about Nik.
“This is my friend, Nik,” I explained, still using that gentle and patient voice. “He called the cops for us,” I added. “And the other guy is dead, so I think we’re okay.”
“What about the dragons?” Hilary blurted, still staring at Nik as though he might try to eat her. “What happened to the dragons?”
I shook my head, drawing a blank on that one. I glanced at Nik.
“They ran away,” he told her calmly, standing next to me as if being in a field stark naked at dusk with a dead serial killer, a female P.I. and two kidnapping victims was the most normal thing in the world. “They won’t be back,” he added. “...Not tonight.”
I looked at Jazzy and saw her eyes narrow at Nik.
She was definitely the smarter one of the two, but I knew there wasn’t much I could do now, but let their stories come out in the wash.
Hopefully, no one would ever believe them.
Even as I thought it, Jazzy smiled at me. Her skepticism about my story was still there, I could feel it, but I could also feel her choosing to let it go. Whatever else she thought about what had happened that day, she’d definitely decided I was one of the good guys.
“So this is Nik?” she said, quirking an eyebrow. She gave him a once-over, then grinned at me a bit cheekily. “He’s, uh...pretty cute.”
Laughing, in spite of myself, I moved in front of Nik anyway, blocking his more, uh, private areas, from view of the two high school students.
No reason to corrupt the minds of children, after everything else.
Even so, her words brought reality back to me, at least to some degree. Looking at Nik more seriously, I motioned with my head for him to follow me to the other side of the car. Walking well around Evers’ fallen and now pretty gross-looking body, I made my way to the hood of the car, using the car’s banged up body for balance with my free hand.
Nik followed me, seeming to understand why I was doing it.
Once we got there, and hopefully out of earshot of the two girls, I leaned closer to him, kissing him on the cheek.
“You better go,” I told him, meeting his gaze. “They can’t find you out here naked.” Seeing Nik’s puzzled look, I shook my head. “...I’m not saying they’d know what it means, but it’ll cause too many questions. I think you should go. When the cops come, I’ll tell them that you had a car nearby. I’ll say you left to get help. All right?”
Nik stared at me. I could tell something was there, on the tip of his tongue. Something he wanted to say to me, or to ask maybe, but he didn’t seem to know how to say it, or ask it...or maybe he just couldn’t decide if now was the right time.
I could relate. I had about a million questions for him, too.
But I had a feeling Gantry was screaming down the freeway at about 120 mph with his team, and probably half of the Seattle PD not far behind, given all the 9-1-1 calls they must have gotten from a dinosaur chasing cars on northbound Highway 5...or two dinosaurs fighting in a field while an SUV rolled, assuming any witnesses got a good look at that action, too.
So yeah, unlike Nik maybe, I knew it wasn’t the right time.
I was about to prod him again, to tell him to go, before Gantry and the rest of the posse got there, when Nik slid his arms around me suddenly, pulling me up against him.
He kissed me before I could wrap my head around what he was doing, winding his arms tighter around me as he did it, coiling his fingers into my hair and around my hip as he crushed me against him.
For a long moment, yeah, I didn’t care about much else, either.
I kissed him back, letting my relief at him being alive really hit me for the first time. He was stroking my face with his fingers then, kissing me harder even as he pressed me against the hood of the car.
Then, after what felt like a long...but not nearly long enough...time, he released me.
I watched him walk away, heading in a diagonal line south towards the road. I already knew he’d veer off once he was out of sight of the car, and walk into the woods.
I didn’t question how I knew that, either.
I did know there was no second car. Nik would be flying home. Or walking.
That time, when I glanced back towards the SUV’s windshield, I saw two teenaged girls giggling at me from the back seat. Even Hilary was smiling, even if she still looked overly pale and kind of out of it. They pointed at me when I faced them both, giggling harder and talking to one another although I couldn’t hear their words.
Under normal circumstances, I might have rolled my eyes.
That time, I just grinned back at them, feeling another intense flush of relief.
Of course, I knew I’d have to answer for killing Evers, in one shape or form, but I wasn’t too worried about that, given everything. Only a few, simple things mattered to me as I stared through the cracked windshield of that black, crunched up, wreck of a BMW.
Nik was alive.
I was alive.
So were Gantry and Irene.
So was my screw-up of a brother, Jake, for that matter...who I loved, in spite of everything.
I’d managed to keep my promise to Mr. Jiāng. Even if it was a dumb promise, and one I probably should never have made...I’d kept it.
And yeah, okay, so a bunch of alien shape-shifters were still roaming around Washington State, including their leader, who’d just tried to kidnap me...and finger me for terrorism...and sell me to some mob bosses from Eastern Europe. I hadn’t forgotten all of that.
But I decided I wouldn’t worry about it, either.
I decided that was a problem for another day.
Or so I hoped.
19
Boy Fights and a Late Confession
“Gantry, jeez...” I rolled my eyes in mock drama, letting my weight fall back into the beat-up but extremely comfy leather chair. “Give it a rest, will you? Just one day. Everything’s fine. You wouldn’t be using your guys for this if it wasn’t...”
The tall ex-Marine stared down at me, his blue eyes boring into my face.
Still, I could tell he heard me.
I could also tell he wasn’t being entirely honest about what bugged him about all of this.
A flicker of what might have been guilt crossed his tanned face, probably because he could see some of my thoughts on my face...or maybe because I was still pretty beat-up from my adventures of the previous week...or maybe both. All in all, I felt pretty okay, despite everything. Tired, sure, and sore still. I was definitely on the mend, however, and ready to get back to work.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not sure what you want me to do about it, exactly.”
“Control him,” Gantry said, his voice a near-growl.
I snorted a laugh that time, giving Gantry a pointed look. “Seriously?”
“He listens to you more than he does me!” Gantry said, undaunted by my humorous head-shake and a second exhale meant to convey I thought he was off his rocker. “I don’t trust any of this! I don’t trust that fucker, Razmun...or any of what he says he’s going to do.” Gantry bit his lip, as if suppressing something else he would have liked to say, too.
I frowned a little, wondering what that was all ab
out.
Then I shook it off.
“Nik is trying to negotiate with them,” I explained patiently. “Given the events of the past few weeks, I thought you’d find that reassuring...or at least a step in the right direction.”
“Getting them off Earth would be a lot more reassuring, Tonto.”
I conceded his point with a wave of my hand. “Nik said he’d offer to help them with that,” I said. “It’s a win-win, Gantry,” I added, looking up at him again. “Let Nik handle it. They’re his people. He understands them. And he knows Razmun. Razmun agreed to leave all humans alone while they worked out the details of their agreement...” I let my own eyes narrow when I saw Gantry frown, the look on his face making it clear just how much he trusted that agreement. “You just don’t trust Nik...if you did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I added.
“Why the hell would I trust him, chica?” Gantry burst out. “He nearly got you killed!”
I felt my jaw harden. “He nearly got me killed?”
I saw a hurt look flicker across Gantry’s face. More guilt quickly followed.
Looking at him, it occurred to me how he’d taken my words.
“I didn’t mean that,” I said impatiently. “I was talking about Evers. And Razmun. And those crazy Russians...not you. I know you were trying to find me, G-man.”
“I don’t know how he slipped my guys,” Gantry muttered.
I waved that off, fighting not to be annoyed.
Gantry had been beating himself up for losing Evers ever since that crap all went down the week before. At this point, I really wanted him to let it go. I had enough to deal with, with Nik hovering over me 24/7 and him going into formal negotiations with Razmun and me spending way too much of my time both at the hospital and then at the police station. I’d almost been relieved when Nik announced he was going to go talk to Razmun, if only so I’d have some time to myself, to just watch bad television and space out.
Crash Morph: Gate Shifter Book Two Page 27