35. Briar
35
brIAR
It’s unnerving just sitting here. I keep my back against the tree, trying to convince myself that no one can see me from behind. Turning to look over my shoulder makes too much noise, so I sit as still as possible and keep watch over the buildings and the driveway.
I don’t know if minutes are passing or hours. Days. Lifetimes. I feel jumpy and my nerves are frayed. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see, but I don’t see anything at all. There’s no movement. Not even a breeze.
Keep vigilant, I tell myself. Most of my attention remains on the little house where we think the babies are being held. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to know where the babies came from. Pregnant women missing at the end of their pregnancies? Yeah…
Chills race down my back, but I deliberately push away the unease I feel. Nothing matters except getting those babies out safely and finding Miranda. Everything else can wait. Nothing else is more important than those objectives.
I jump when Voss speaks. “Briar. Don’t speak. Don’t move.”
I freeze, holding my breath, eyes wide.
“The guard has moved up behind you.” My entire body tenses. “When I tell you, I want you to turn to your left. You’re at six o’clock. Turn to face five o’clock and shoot at a forty-degree angle.”
His words are rapid, but I subtly nod.
“Turn the safety off now.”
My thumb pushes the little button up.
“Relax. Take a breath.”
I’m startled again when I hear a loud bang and fire races up my leg. My eyesight dims for a second as my heart tries to race out of my chest.
“Now,” Voss orders.
Ignoring the pain and disorientation, I spin around the tree and shoot blindly. “Again,” Voss’ voice says in my ear. I shoot a second time. Then a third.
The third time, warmth spatters all over my face, making my entire body jerk. The man I shot falls, screaming.
Dropping my rifle, I crawl to him and swat his gun away from him.
“He’s not dead,” Voss says.
Great. I’ve moved the guns away from my hold. That’s probably lesson number one in the military—never take your hands off your weapon. I fail.
Reaching over my body blindly, my hand falls on the handle of a knife. The man is groaning as he tries to reach for his gun. I crab crawl over to him and plunge the knife I pull from my hip into his neck .
He gurgles and blood dribbles from his mouth.
I back away as bile fills my mouth and scramble back to the other side of the tree, grabbing the rifle in my hands again and sitting back. I’m fine. I’m not going to throw up. I’m not going to throw up. I’m not?—
The pain in my leg suddenly breaks through my nausea and tears sting my eyes. He shot me. He?—
“Take a breath, Briar,” Voss says. “Close your eyes and calm down. Concentrate on your breathing.”
I do as I’m told, trying to usher in calm thoughts.
“I need you to look at your leg, please.”
Bracing myself, I twist until I can look at the wound in my leg. I stare at the dark blood oozing out. I was fucking shot!
“Can you move your foot? Without touching the wound itself, feel around your leg. Did it go through your leg?”
I’m prepared for pain when I move my foot, but it moves just fine. Pain, yes. Excruciating. I’ve never felt pain like this. But my ankle moves. My toes curl. My entire leg moves. I feel around and the wound seems to be localized to the side of my calf.
“I think it’s just surface,” I say. “It doesn’t feel or look like it hit anything important.”
“Good. Do you have another knife on you?”
I look down and reach for one strapped to the calf of my other leg. “Yep.”
“Cut your sleeve off and wrap it around your leg. It needs to be tight enough to stop the flow of blood but not tight enough that it cuts off circulation. Use both sleeves if you have to. You need to protect it from as much outside dirt and debris as you can. ”
It takes me several minutes to struggle through the task at hand. When I’m finally done, I sit against the tree, winded and breathless.
“Feeling okay?” he asks.
I nod. “Yeah. Just winded.”
“Dizzy?”
Opening my eyes, I wait for the world to spin. It seems to be sitting correctly on its axis. “I think I’m okay.”
“Good. Pick up your rifle and get the safety back on. Pay attention to your assignment again.”
“Got it.”
Once more, I do as instructed. My leg throbs, but I ignore it in favor of staring at the house. There are newborn babies inside. My only goal is to protect them.
I’m only sitting there for maybe another ten minutes when I hear the unmistakable sound of tires on gravel. I hold my breath to listen carefully. Yep. It’s moving this way. I shift to get a better look at the driveway. Sure enough, a large, black SUV comes speeding through the trees and to an abrupt stop outside the small house.
There’s zero surprise when it’s the detective who comes barreling out. The car door slams shut, and he rushes to the house, ripping the door open hard enough that it comes swinging back around when it hits the side of the house.
My heart thunders. “Voss,” I whisper urgently.
“I see. Noaz is on his way. Can you get closer?”
Looking around, I scope out the area I’m in. The tree line continues to my right, winding closer to the car and house .
“Yeah, I think?—”
“Shoot the tires, Briar,” Voss says.
I’m not sure I’m close enough to hit the tires accurately, but I shift to try. I aim for the one closest to me and focus on how Noaz instructed me to breathe when shooting. Fortunately, it’s not that far away. Ten yards maybe. And the tires aren’t small.
The first shot hits its target, and the tire deflates. The second misses and I wince at the loud crunch. I’m not sure what I just hit.
“Don’t hit the engine,” Voss warns. “We don’t want to blow up the house.”
Dread slithers through me like cold fingers. “Thanks,” I mutter.
“You’re doing good. Just concentrate. Take your time.”
Time isn’t something we have, but I do as Voss says. I aim for the second back tire again, but I’m on an angle and only have a very small window. It’s truly just luck when I hit it. However, I hit it in such a way that there’s a loud pop.
I still, holding my breath, and wait.
“Where’s the guard?” I ask.
“Dead. He ran to the shed when they called backup. Noaz killed four, and you killed one.”
When no one responds to the exploded tire, I focus on the front tire. I don’t get a shot off before the door of the house opens again.
“The nurse is dead,” Voss reports. I hear Noaz curse through the comm.
Flicking the safety back on, I creep toward the house as best I can. My leg doesn’t hurt as much right now. I’m guessing adrenaline is making it numb. With the detective inside, I rush toward the cluster of junk piled just outside the tree line at the closest point I can get.
I freeze when the detective shoves the door open again. He has two baby car seats in his hands and my breath catches. He hasn’t noticed the car tires, so he opens the back door to begin loading them inside.
Fuck. What do I do?
A second vehicle comes screaming down the driveway, seemingly out of nowhere. Keeping myself low with my gun pointing toward the detective, I watch out of the corner of my eye as the car slows and parks at an angle to the SUV.
Once again, I’m unsurprised to see Vanessa get out. We haven’t met in person, but I recognize her from photos Voss had put on the screen.
“What are you doing here?” Anthony hisses. I’m close enough to hear their conversation relatively clearly.
“They’re coming. I told you not to mess with this one. The Van Dorens have more money than god!”
The detective snorts. “I’m not afraid of the Van Dorens.”
“You should be!” Vanessa snaps. “Where are your guards, Tony? Huh?”
Anthony pauses as he looks around, frowning.
I nearly jump out of my skin when Noaz materializes. They have a machete in their hands and they swing it at the side of Anthony’s head. Anthony ducks but screams when the blade nips his ear. He reaches for his gun so I raise mine, clicking off the safety.
Anthony’s a big guy, but I can’t take a chance on shooting Noaz. How am I going to shoot the detective ?
Noaz swings the machete again, this time following his wrist that’s grasping the gun. They shift and I take my shot. However, I’m not expecting Vanessa to get in my way. She raises her hand just as my shot releases from my gun. She’s holding a handgun. Something small and dainty.
The bullet that probably would have hit the detective’s shoulder hits Vanessa’s gun instead, sending it flying. She screams and pulls her hands to her chest.
Clicking the safety on, I get to my feet and run out from where I’m hiding, ignoring Voss in my ear. I barrel into Vanessa, sending her flying through the air and skidding across the ground. Then I spin and grab both the car seats with crying babies.
I don’t try to go far. Just around the other side of the detective’s SUV, where I huddle with them. Thankfully, they have binkies on their chests and I gently put them into their mouths, one on each side, and hum quietly.
Pressing my back to the car, I keep the car seats close. Once they’ve stopped crying, I pull my rifle back up and wait. I can hear the struggle between Noaz and the detective. My heart is in my throat.
Then a third fucking car comes down the driveway. “Fuck’s sake,” I hiss.
“Just Loren. You’re fine.”
My shoulders relax. Loren will even the odds. While I want to close my eyes, I don’t dare. I stare blindly at nothing, waiting for someone else to come around this side of the car with a gun or a knife.
I jerk my rifle up when someone rounds the car, but quickly put it down when I see Noaz. They drop in front of me, hands on both sides of my face, and kiss me hard. “You’re okay?” they ask .
I nod.
“Your leg?”
“It’s okay. Not a bad shot.”
Noaz takes a breath and turns their attention to the babies. “There should have been a third.”
“Should I check the house? Maybe he just didn’t have enough hands? Where is he?”
“They’re both going to be spending a few days with Loren. They have some talking to do,” Noaz says. “I’m going to get Miranda. Doc Mark is here. He’s a trusted family physician. He’s going to check out you and the babies while I get Miranda. Don’t move.”
I nod. “Are they all dead?”
“Yes,” Noaz says at the same time Voss does.
A relieved breath rushes out of me. “Okay. Go. I’ll be right here.”
Noaz rests their forehead against mine for a minute. “You did good, husband. I’m so sorry I brought you into this.”
I laugh. It sounds slightly hysterical. “I didn’t give you a choice. But if it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather be the stay-at-home-dad type.”
They chuckle. “Absolutely.”
Someone, who I presume is Doc Mark, comes around the side of the car as Noaz is getting to their feet. Noaz does a quick introduction and then runs off. Doc has one of those old doctor bags that physicians bring to house calls.
“Let’s see your leg,” he says.
“Actually, will you check the babies first? ”
He nods, but doesn’t take them out of their seats as he does a check on each, making sure they’re not injured or sick. Temperatures and heartbeats.
“I think they’re fine. If I had to guess, they were the one aspect of this operation he made sure was kept in peak health.”
Yeah, probably. I don’t know exactly what he was doing with the babies, but if he’s killing the women and keeping the babies alive, a sick baby isn’t going to do him any good.
Doc checks my leg, pulling my shirt wrappings off and cutting my pant leg away. I wince when he cleans the wound and grit my teeth when he pokes and prods around. My leg throbs when he finally wraps it again. An ache so bad I swear, I can feel it in my bones.
He hands me a little white pill. “This’ll take the edge off. I’m going to need to take a better look when we’re somewhere clean.”
“Do you need to cut off my foot?”
Doc chuckles. “It’s not quite that serious. I’d rather not expose it to what’s around here as much as possible, is all.”
Sighing, I nod. “Thanks.”
My breath catches when Noaz reappears. They’ve got Miranda in their arms and… she looks gray.
“Back of Loren’s car,” Doc orders, getting to his feet.
They leave my view, and I’m left looking at the babies. One is slightly bigger than the other. They’re wearing hospital-neutral white, so they look indistinguishable at best. Both are sleeping now. I wonder when they’ve eaten last.
Noaz comes back and kneels on the ground in front of me. They pull me into their arms, and I wrap mine around their waist. My rifle is pressed between us, but I don’t even care as we cling to each other.
“I’m sorry you got shot. I should have been faster,” Noaz says.
I snort. “Don’t.”
We don’t move for a very long time. There’s scuffling and movement, muffled screams and yells. But we don’t do anything else except hold each other and stare at the babies on either side of us. We might have taken some lives today, but we saved innocent lives, and I think that’s a fair exchange.