Chapter 7 #3
I jumped up, shouting as I knocked over my chair and raced for the door.
The diner was small, yet it felt like it spanned miles as I pushed people aside to get to my truck.
I felt like an idiot for not recognizing the sound of my own emergency alarm.
I’d bought the truck just before moving here, so I hadn’t had it long enough to hear the alarm very often, but some instinct still should have alerted me that something was wrong.
My irritation at Deputy Hillard must have distracted me. I was such an idiot. I should have known better than to let my guard down and not take the situation seriously. When I was on active duty, this kind of oversight would have gotten me killed.
Now, it might be someone else’s life that paid the price.
When I finally pushed my way outside, I stumbled right into a nightmare.
Several armed men surrounded my truck, and the passenger side door was open.
Right before my eyes, Ellis was pulled out of the truck, kicking and screaming all the way.
He put up a decent fight, until one good punch to the face dropped him to the ground.
I saw red.
It was just like being back on the battlefield.
My instincts were still nearly as sharp as they had been, and barely a heartbeat passed before I smashed my fist into the nearest assailant’s face.
My body moved without thought, and in that moment, I felt like I was twenty years old again.
Before the first assailant had even hit the ground, I was already grabbing the gun out of their hand.
It was just a handgun, so it lacked the precision and power that I usually preferred from my weapons. But it would do.
Standing in the middle of the sidewalk, I aimed and put two bullets into the next assailant. There wasn’t even time for them to turn around, so I ended up shooting them directly in the back. It wasn’t an honorable kill, but it was effective.
Behind me, I could hear the faint sound of screaming. People inside the diner were panicking, as what they thought was simply a carjacking turned into a lethal shootout.
That was fine. So long as they didn’t get in my way, they could scream all they liked.
I managed to kill one more of the assailants before the rest of them noticed what was happening and started firing back, forcing me to take cover behind my truck.
As bullets ricocheted off the truck’s frame, I was glad that I’d decided to go with such a sturdy model.
This was the truck’s second gunfight in just a few days, and it was holding up surprisingly well.
There were too many bullets flying for me to make my way around the front of the truck, but luckily, I’d left the windows down for Ellis when I went inside the diner.
I refused to think about how the lowered windows were probably how the assailants got Ellis out of the tuck in the first place and focused only on the opportunity it provided me.
Aiming my gun through the open windows, I managed to get one assailant in the leg, and clip another’s shoulder.
They would survive, but the injuries were severe enough that they weren’t able to continue to participate in the fight. I should have been happy about that. Ending a conflict with minimal casualties should have been a good thing, but all I could feel was disappointment.
I wanted them dead. I wanted everyone who dared to hurt the people I cared about—hurt Ellis—to bleed out on the concrete.
Just as I was trying to figure out my next move, the gunfire suddenly stopped. Dread washed over me. There was no good reason for the assailants to let up their assault when they still had the upper hand.
Keeping my finger on the trigger of my gun, I peered around the front of my truck.
There were only three assailants left in fighting condition.
Less than I originally thought. Two of them stood with their guns firmly pointed in my direction, flanking the last assailant who was clearly the leader.
All of them wore masks over their faces, so I couldn’t see them, but that didn’t stop me from glaring directly into their eyes when I saw what had caused them to stop shooting.
The leader’s gun wasn’t pointed at me. Instead, they had one arm wrapped around Ellis’s throat, and their gun pointed directly at his head.
Ellis groaned and tugged at the arm around his throat, but he was still dazed from the blow he’d taken earlier.
He may as well have tried to fend them off with a feather for all the effect his struggling had.
Blood dripped down his face from a gash on his forehead and matted the thick hair on the side of his head.
I clenched my gun so hard it shook, but I didn’t press the trigger. As much as I wanted to kill them, I couldn’t take the risk.
The assistants said nothing. They made no threats or demands. They simply kept the gun pointed at Ellis’s head as they dragged him toward the back of a waiting van.
I’d been wrong. When Ellis and I were attacked before, I’d assumed that they were after me and that Ellis’s involvement was just collateral damage.
Now it was clear that Ellis had been their target all along.
I spat every curse I could think of under my breath as I watched Ellis disappear inside the van.
Still, I waited.
The moment for action came when the final assailant jumped inside the van. It was only a split second, but in order to climb inside the van they had to stop aiming their gun.
My finger squeezed the trigger faster than my brain could think.
It was muscle memory at this point to shoot the moment an opportunity arose.
There was no hesitation. No second-guessing.
Just a familiar popping sound, a jolt against my wrist as I fought to keep the gun steady, and then my target was clutching a freshly bleeding wound.
Damn. I’d missed. As I’d feared, the handgun wasn’t as accurate as I’d like, and I’d only grazed my target.
The last assailant stumbled into the van and the doors slammed closed just as the engine revved. They were about to escape. About to get away from me.
No.
I wouldn’t allow it.
Tossing the disappointing handgun aside, I grabbed the rifle I had strapped to the rack in the back of my truck, then jumped behind the wheel.
I lost precious seconds fumbling with the keys to get my truck started, and by the time I put it in drive, the van with Ellis inside was already careening down the street.
My foot was already on the gas when my passenger door swung open. Deputy Hillard was nearly knocked off his feet as he dove inside my already moving truck.
“Drive,” he ordered as he struggled to right himself in the seat and close the door behind him.
“I don’t need your order,” I said through gritted teeth as I steered my truck onto the street, pushing it as fast as it would go.
“Actually, you do.” Deputy Hillard held up his badge.
“Have you forgotten that you’re a civilian now.
You’re subject to the laws just like everyone else, and driving hell bent down the road in a dangerous high-speed chase is illegal.
But now you can technically say that this chase was sanctioned by a member of law enforcement. ”
We were gaining on the van. On an open road, the van might have had the upper hand, but on the twisting roads of a small mountain town, even a racecar could only go so fast.
“Fine,” I said, pressing my truck’s accelerator all the way down to the floor. “If you’re going to be here, then make yourself useful and figure out a way to stop that van.”
After considering it for a moment, Deputy Hillard pulled his revolver from the holster at his hip and leaned out the window to aim at the van. He fired a few times, each shot hitting the back of the van, but it made no difference. The bullets had no more effect than pebbles.
One of the assailants leaned out the van window and returned fire. The bullet took out my side mirror, and Deputy Hillard barely managed to duck back inside the truck to avoid the shot.
“Fuck. I think the van is armored. Taking it out won’t be so easy.”
I scoffed and wanted to roll my eyes, but I didn’t dare look away from the van. We’d completely left the main roads behind and were quickly approaching the edge of town.
“Useless.” Still keeping one hand on the wheel, I reached for the rifle I’d grabbed earlier. “Let me take care of it. Just grab the wheel.”
“What?”
I don’t bother to explain as I abandoned the wheel to hang the upper half of my body out the window. Deputy Hillard shouted and grabbed the wheel as the truck swerved, but he managed to keep it under control.
“Are you crazy?”
“Hmmm…” I thought it over for a second as I lined my eye up to the scope of my gun. “Probably.”
I fired, and the rifle made an impressive sound as it kicked back harshly into my shoulder.
The bullet put a sizable hole in the back of the van’s bumper.
“Holy shit!” Deputy Hillard cursed and his grip on the wheel wavered for a moment causing us to swerve. “What kind of modifications do you have on that thing? Do you have a license for that?”
It was only thanks to my use of experience that I managed to keep my gun steady as Deputy Hillard struggled to get the truck back under control.
“Yep. I’d show you my license, but I’m a little busy right now.”
The moment the truck straightened out, I fired again, blowing out one of the van’s back wheels.
The whole vehicle jerked, but it should have been able to keep going.
A deflated wheel shouldn’t have been enough to stop such a sturdy vehicle, but luck wasn’t on their side.
The tire blew at exactly the same moment as they hit a large root that was growing across the road.
The combined effect was enough to make the van swerve out of control.
They fishtailed, tires struggling to find traction on the dirt road, and their back end knocked against a tree.
Vans were naturally more top heavy, and at such a high speed, the impact caused the whole van to flip.
I hit the brakes to keep from crashing into them and was helpless to do anything but watch as the van rolled over several times. There was a chilling shriek of bending metal as with each roll the van made it twist more and more out of shape.
I forgot to even put my truck in park as I jumped out the door and ran for the van.
“Ellis!”
One of the van’s doors fell off its hinges and a body fell out.
It wasn’t Ellis. Even without seeing their face, I knew just from their physique that it was one of the assailants.
And they were still alive. They groaned as they crawled away from the wreckage, injured but clearly alive.
Deputy Hillard ran past me and grabbed the assailant’s arm. “You’re under arrest. Anything you say?—”
He never got to finish reciting the Miranda Rights as I raised my rifle and shot the assailant directly in the head.
Deputy Hillard jumped back. “What the hell? You can’t just…”
He trailed off as I stepped over the fresh body, kicking it over with my foot as I went. My modified rifle was no joke, and the entire back of the assailant’s head was now gone.
“Yes, I can.” I paused when I reached Deputy Hillard. “Are you going to stop me?”
Deputy Hillard quickly shook his head. He was more afraid of me in that moment than he had been during the entire car chase and gunfight.
Good. That would make things easier.
I approached the back of the van with my gun reloaded and at the ready.
This one was going to haunt me. Right now, adrenaline was surging through my veins, so I wasn’t feeling anything but righteous fury, but once I calmed down, I knew the memory of the lives I took today would keep me awake at night for a while.
I’d made it a point to make sure that killing never became easy.
I didn’t want to be one of those people who held such little regard for life.
But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t fight. When the situation called for it, I would still pull the trigger without hesitation.
I would just suffer for it later.
Some luck was on my side. The crash had killed the other assailants for me.
They must have been standing in the back of the van when the crash happened and bounced around inside it like pinballs when the van flipped.
Both of their necks were broken, and they lay in crumpled heaps among the wreckage.
“Ellis?” I called as I searched the bodies for any sign of the man. “Ellis? Answer me, damn it.”
I eventually found him hanging upside-down from the ceiling. He was strapped into a chair that had once been bolted to the side of the van, but with the van lying on its side, he was now dangling from the ceiling.
My fingers pressed against his neck.
His pulse hammered under my touch. He was alive.
Gasping with a sigh of relief, I rushed to find a way to get him down. “Hold on, Ellis. I’ve got you. Just… hold on.”
He didn’t make a sound. Even when I finally managed to free him from the straps keeping him in place, he didn’t so much as twitch.
I carefully carried Ellis out of the van and laid him on the ground.
He looked worse in the sunlight. The blood staining his skin was bright red, drawing attention to how pale his olive complexion had become.
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Deputy Hillard said as he also knelt beside Ellis. “Is he all right?”
“I don’t know.” I tapped Ellis’s cheek a couple of times, trying to get some sort of reaction from him. “Ellis. Come on. Give me something.”
He stayed as silent as the dead. While he may have been alive, nothing I did would wake him up.