Twisted

by Laura K. Curtis

  Both Ethan’s knee and his shoulder throbbed. He staggered forward and bent to help Lucy up, which was when he realized that the odd coloring of her skin he’d noticed when he’d seen her through the window wasn’t due to the flames. She was covered in blood, as was Tim. And neither appeared fully conscious.

  “Lucy!” He shook her slightly. Light as she was, he’d never be able to carry both her and her brother in his condition. “Come on, woman, get up!” She stirred slightly. “Lucy! Tim needs you! Tim’s going to die!” She roused at that, as he’d known she would. Her dazed blue eyes met his, and her focus sharpened.

  “Ethan—”

  “C’mon, sugar. You have to help me here.” Despite TJ’s efforts, the fire was creeping inward toward them, closing their escape route. “We need to go. Now.” Lucy shook her brother. Tim responded only sluggishly. His face was chalk white, and Ethan wondered whether he’d survive the smoke inhalation and loss of blood.

  “Can you manage on your own?” he asked Lucy. She nodded and began crawling toward the door. Ethan watched until he could be sure she’d make it out, then put his hands beneath Tim’s armpits and began dragging him in the same direction. Outside, TJ had Lucy seated against a tree and was applying pressure to her shoulder.

  “The mayor,” Lucy gasped as Ethan set Tim next to her. “We have to help him. Billy tied him to a chair. He can’t get out on his own.”

  Billy? Sheriff Pike had been behind this?

  The man couldn’t be conscious, or he’d have made a fuss over Lucy and Tim being evacuated before him. The damned cabin was an inferno. Still, Ethan made his way back, intending to attempt to haul the man out. But Dobbs surprised him. Two steps inside, Ethan found him. He’d turned the chair on its side and was squirming his way forward. With TJ’s help, Ethan managed to get him out, chair and all. They stripped the rope off, and Dobbs staggered to his feet.

  “We’ll never get an ambulance out here,” Ethan said. “We need to get back to the car.” He and TJ had pulled up behind the Jeep he assumed Lucy had driven.

  “I’ll take the boy,” said Dobbs, shocking Ethan speechless. “You don’t look as if you can handle much more than your own weight, and TJ will have her hands full with Lucy.” He coughed, spat, and leaned over and hauled Tim up into a fireman’s carry. “Let’s go.”

  They’d almost reached the truck when the first shot rang out. Dobbs’s head exploded in a spray of red and gray, and Lucy shrieked. Ethan grabbed her and rolled to cover near a fallen tree. Damn, damn, damn. Where the hell was Pike? Lucy squirmed beneath him, but Ethan wasn’t about to let her up until he knew where the danger lay.

  “Ethan.”

  “Give me a minute.” He poked his head up and saw TJ crouching behind a nearby tree.

  “You see anything?”

  “No. Where the hell is he?”

  Lucy ignored them both. “Pike!” she shouted, struggling against Ethan. “You fucking coward. Give it up! You can’t explain your way out of this one!”

  A shadow shifted in the woods off to their right, and both Ethan and TJ fired.

  “Get moving,” Ethan ordered. “TJ, take Lucy. I’ll bring Tim along in a minute.” He had no idea how. Tim’s breathing was fast and shallow, and he’d be dead weight, but Lucy needed to be protected, so Ethan would do whatever it took. “Radio for help. They ought to be on their way already, but be sure to get the EMTs. And for God’s sake, tell them the sheriff’s on the wrong side of this one before they get here.”

  As TJ and Lucy ran through the woods, Ethan fired another volley off into the woods along their route. Pike returned the fire, and Ethan wedged himself behind a bulky oak for protection. He waited until TJ and Lucy were leaning up against the truck, out of range of Pike’s gun, and called out again to draw fire so TJ could get Lucy inside.

  “Come out, Pike! Don’t make this any worse!” Bullets buried themselves in the tree he hid behind, sending slivers flying everywhere. The truck door slammed, and he let out a quick breath of relief. Lucy was inside, out of harm’s way as long as she and TJ stayed down.

  In the distance, he heard sirens.

  “Hear that, Sheriff? That’s the bell tolling for you! It’s over!”

  “Fuck you, Donovan! These are my woods, this is my county. You can’t win. You’ll never find me. I’ll haunt you, and I’ll haunt your girlfriend. And one night, when you’re relaxing after a couple pills and a glass of whiskey, I’ll come knocking on your door.” Another round of bullets, then silence.

  Emergency vehicles pulled up behind Ethan’s truck, and two EMT’s headed in his direction. Ethan covered them as they lifted Tim and trotted back toward their ambulance. Johnny Wilson climbed from a county cruiser.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” he shouted before he’d even reached Ethan.

  “Keep your voice down, you damned fool. He’s still out there.” Ethan grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him down into a crouch, eyes scanning the tree line the whole time. The hell if anyone else was dying on his watch.

  “Tara Jean said the sheriff was trying to kill y’all?”

  “It’s true.” Ethan took his eyes off the surrounding trees for a minute to emphasize the point. Wilson met his gaze with skepticism.

  “I’ve known that man my entire life, Donovan.”

  Christ, he was tired of these townies treating him like an outsider instead of a cop. “No longer than you’ve known TJ.”

  Wilson conceded the truth of the statement with a nod, and Ethan relaxed a fraction.

  “Look, I understand it goes against the grain.” He tried to sound encouraging, but damn, he was too pissed. “You don’t have to go gunning for him. Just bring him in. And do it carefully.”

  A fire engine arrived, and heavily outfitted men began jogging through the woods toward the blazing cabin, talking into their radios about the logistics of containment. Surely that would be enough to send Pike on his way?

  TJ leaned on the horn. “Hey,” she shouted out the window of Ethan’s truck. “The ambulance is taking Tim, but we need to take Lucy ourselves! Get over here!”

  “Gotta go,” Ethan said to Johnny. “This is your jurisdiction, anyway, so I guess you’re in command. Just be careful. There’s an armed man out there, and whether or not you’ve always considered him your friend, he’s insane.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Ethan dashed for the truck. TJ sat in the driver’s seat, and she ordered him to get in the back with Lucy. He didn’t argue. He needed to touch her, to check her over and be sure she was still alive. Apparently, she felt the same because, even before he closed the door, she slid across the seat and wrapped her good arm around him. He pulled her closer until she sat across his lap, her head tucked between his neck and shoulder.

  Under the front seat, he found a blanket they kept on hand to warm shock victims, and he wrapped it around her, being careful not to jostle her shoulder wound. Why had Pike made her undress? Fury slid through him again, and he had to reassure himself that Pike’s intentions remained unfulfilled. Lucy was safe, and he would keep her that way.

  He didn’t know what to say to her. Everything had changed, but nothing had changed. He could no longer imagine his life without her, but he still had nothing to offer her. So he sat quietly, stroking her hair as TJ wove through the emergency vehicles and out toward the road.

  • • •

  LUCY CLUNG TO Ethan, relishing the feel of his body against hers. They had made it. He was here, with her. But how much damage had he done to his bad knee, his shoulder? She buried her face in the crook of his neck and tried not to weep. His life was in shambles. Between the truth of his past and his ruined knee, he would never be able to go back to police work.

  “I’m so sorry,” she choked out.

  “Don’t even think it. None of this was your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t come back here, you
wouldn’t be hurt. Tim wouldn’t be—”

  “If you hadn’t come back here, Billy Pike would still be raping and murdering women. Jed Martin and Eric Allenby would still be hunting down illegal immigrants like animals in the woods.”

  The truck thumped over a rock and off the dirt road out of the woods onto the road near Lucy’s house, and TJ turned toward the highway to take them to the hospital. A sheriff’s department car passed, headed into the woods. A minute later, a Hummer came up the road from the same direction.

  “It’s Pike!” TJ’s shouted warning came the very moment she twisted the wheel to avoid hitting the Hummer head-on. Their right wheels left the road, but Pike had prepared for the action, and the Hummer hit them with a screech of metal, locking driver’s side to driver’s side. Both vehicles shuddered to a halt with the Hummer’s front fender hung up beneath the rear wheel well of Ethan’s truck.

  “Down!” Ethan shouted, forcing Lucy to the floor.

  TJ, too, slid down in her seat, just in time to avoid the two shots that came through her window, shattering the glass. Lucy felt Ethan shift to reach between the seats.

  “I’m out of ammo. He’s going to come around the other side the minute he can get free of his airbag, and we’ll be sitting ducks. Pass me your weapon.” TJ did, and Ethan popped open the passenger door and fired off a couple of blind rounds. When he pushed the door fully open and slid one leg out, Lucy had to force herself not to clutch at him, to drag him back inside where they had at least the illusion of safety.

  • • •

  MORE SIRENS WERE approaching, but Ethan couldn’t afford to wait for them. Pike had evidently given up his plan to trap them in the truck and kill them. He was loping off toward the deepest part of the woods. His khaki shirt was covered with blood and he wasn’t moving well.

  “I’ll be right back,” Ethan promised.

  “No! Let him go. Let someone else get him. Please, Ethan.” Tears were pouring down Lucy’s face, more devastating than bullets. “Do you remember what you said about not being able to find me like Renee? I can’t let him take anything else from me. I can’t. I can’t lose you.”

  Ethan wanted to shout, to roar in a primal combination of pain and joy. Instead, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “You won’t lose me, sugar. I swear it. But I can’t let him go. Don’t ask me to.”

  Silently, she nodded.

  “Radio the EMTs. Make them take you to the hospital,” he told TJ. “I’ll meet you there.” He couldn’t wait for an answer. Even bleeding and on the run, Pike had too great an advantage for Ethan to give him much of a head start. He set off after the sheriff as swiftly as his aching and swollen knee allowed.

  The woods closed in quickly, overwhelming him. The scents, the sounds remained foreign even after nine months on the job. As TJ had reminded him more than once, he was an urban cop through and through. But he’d spent enough time in back alleys and slums, tracking down suspects. He couldn’t let this be any different or he might lose the most important prey he’d ever hunted.

  Ethan’s skin crawled from the unfamiliar surroundings, and his body burned from unaccustomed abuse. He forced the sensations away. Gradually, his senses sharpened and his focus narrowed. Pike was out there, and Ethan had no intention of letting the man get away.

  A spot of blood caught his eye, glistening in the last rays of summer sunlight sifting through the trees. Ethan held his breath and listened. From off to his left, a quiet rustle of leaves and branches alerted him to his quarry’s direction. Pike’s injury was causing him to drag through the groundfall, and Ethan followed the trail, moving tree to tree, protecting himself as best he could while keeping up a decent speed.

  The shot came from his right and took him off guard, scoring a screaming hot path through the skin where his neck and shoulder met. Two inches left, and it would have gone straight through his jugular. He hit the dirt and rolled to the side. Dammit, Pike had suckered him with the trail.

  But he had to be close. From his vantage point behind a large rock, Ethan searched the area. Movement in the brush gave him a target, and he squeezed off two shots. He heard Pike’s cry and his fall.

  All too aware that this could be another trap, Ethan approached the spot slowly. From behind him, he heard voices. Reinforcements. He kept moving, however, in case Pike had merely pretended injury to get away.

  And, indeed, when Ethan stepped through the brush, no body lay there. The unmistakable click of an empty weapon being fired came from his right, and he turned just as Pike came barreling toward him.

  Pike’s body hit with brutal force, sending both men to the ground. Though he was several inches shorter than Ethan and injured more severely, his anger lent him strength.

  “Why won’t you die?” Pike lifted his fist, and Ethan blocked the blow with the side of his forearm and tried to wrestle the smaller man off him. Pike raised his knee and slammed it into Ethan’s injured one, sending a spear of paralyzing pain through his body.

  Instinctively, Ethan grabbed for Pike’s neck with both hands. Pike tried to fight back, but Ethan’s longer reach gave him leverage, and he forced the other man back, off, and over until their positions were reversed. But Ethan didn’t let go. Pike’s face reddened and he choked, his fingers scrabbling for purchase and pushing against Ethan’s chest.

  The voices Ethan had heard before came closer, Lucy’s among them.

  “Ethan! Let him up!”

  He felt their hands on him, but all he could see was Pike’s mottling face.

  “Ethan, please.” Lucy, still clad only in her underwear and blanket, knelt beside him, dragging his attention away from the man beneath him. “Please. I need you to let him live. Let Keith deal with him. He’s not going anywhere.”

  Gradually, Ethan forced his muscles to unclench, forced himself to let go and roll away from the other man. Keith Arlen and two deputies grabbed Pike—still gasping for air—and dragged him away. Ethan tried to stand, but his knee gave way. TJ hauled him to his feet, shoving one shoulder beneath his.

  “I thought I told you to take Lucy to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know which of you is more stubborn. I almost had her in Keith’s car when we heard the shots. Then she had to follow you.”

  He looked over at Lucy, stumbling along beside them, her beautiful face far too pale. How much blood had she lost from that shoulder wound? And the smoke inhalation. She should have been in the hospital, but she’d come for him instead. He longed to reach for her, but the geography of it defeated him: with his left arm looped over TJ’s shoulders to keep him on his feet, he could only take Lucy’s left hand, which would surely hurt her wounded shoulder.

  At last they reached the road, where an ambulance waited. The paramedics loaded Lucy inside. Ethan crawled into the passenger seat of Keith’s cruiser while TJ slid behind the wheel, and both vehicles took off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I thought I left my mother behind when I left Dobbs Hollow. Now I find that, all these years, she’s lived in me. I hope I can preserve some sense of her for my brother, for all of you.

  from A Bad Day to Die by Lucy Sadler Caldwell [DRAFT]

  LUCY FELT AS if she were at the same time floating and impossibly heavy. She could hear people moving around, but couldn’t be bothered to open her eyes. Even thinking was an effort, but eventually she sorted out what had happened. She forced her lids up and encountered the brilliant white of a hospital room.

  Ethan slouched in a chair, one leg encased in an immobilizer and propped on the edge of her bed. A bandage covered a wound at the base of his neck an inch above his shoulder, and blue shadows lay beneath his eyes. He looked like hell, but he was alive and that was all that mattered. He must have heard her sigh of relief, because he opened his eyes and gave her a lopsided smile.

  “Hey, sleeping beauty.”

  “Hey. How’s Tim?�
��

  “He came through his surgery like a champ. The docs say he probably won’t regain full fine motor control in his hand, but that’s relatively minor compared to what might have happened.”

  As if her brother didn’t have enough to deal with already. “It’s my fault. I started this whole mess by coming down here.”

  “It’s not. Lucy, for God’s sake, you have to cut yourself some slack here. Tim doesn’t care. He’s worried about you. They put him in a room two doors down, and he keeps saying he’s fine and he wants to get up and come see you. I told him as soon as you woke up I’d let him know.”

  Tears rose in the back of Lucy’s throat, clogged her nose, and leaked out the corners of her eyes.

  “Hey, hey, stop that.” Ethan rose from his chair and pivoted carefully so he could sit on the bed. He grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and wiped away the water dripping down her temples. “You already look like hell, sugar; we can’t have tears, too. You’ve got a room full of friends out there waiting to be allowed in.”

  “Not unless this hospital has the world’s smallest waiting room,” Lucy joked with a watery grin.

  “Nope. Jake and TJ are here, Josh and Megan, Maxie and Buddy. Even Eulie is showing her support, probably because she feels guilty. She treated you badly, and then it turns out that her ex killed your mother. And a bunch of other people, too. Jed’s activities are competing with Billy Pike’s for the number-one slot on the gossip charts.”

  “How does everyone know? How long have I been here?” Instinctively, she looked toward the windows, but they were draped in heavy, light-blocking shades.

  “It’s seven in the morning.”

  “How are Maxie and Buddy here, then? Who’s running the diner?”

  “They left the B team in charge. It’s just breakfast, and most of the people congregating are enjoying the rumors, not the food.