Chapter Seventeen #3
“It’s zero five forty-seven Zulu,” Ben said, returning in time to hear their exchange. He set down the tackle box he was carrying,
and flipped open the latches.
Mike nodded. “That’s twelve forty-seven to us,” he told Olivia, who nodded. She was staring big-eyed at Ben as he tore open
a pack and extracted an antiseptic wipe, then positioned himself so the headlights were shining on Sela’s face and began carefully
cleaning away the blood.
Sela glanced up at him. Fewer than twelve hours ago she’d been doing basically the same thing to him, though admittedly the
cut on his back was much worse than anything she had sustained from the flying glass. Her face was stinging a bit, but that
was all. If she’d been judging her condition by Ben’s expression she’d have thought she was dying, because he looked savage—controlled,
but savage. She could have cleaned her own face much faster because Ben was taking care not to hurt her; she wouldn’t have
been as gentle with herself.
Trey Foster, Harley Johnson, Bob Terrell, and about ten other men were grouped around, anger in their voices as they talked
quietly among themselves, glaring at the damage done to the store, to her. It didn’t matter that the store was currently empty
and useless; one of their own had been attacked, and they took it personally. Likely they were feeling guilty because they
hadn’t thought ahead and Sela and Olivia—a kid!—had literally been put in the line of fire. Mike went over to join them, leaving Ben and Sela relatively isolated, with
Olivia watching.
“You’re hurt because of me,” Ben said under his breath. “Damn it all, I should have thought it through. Of course the bastards
were going to come after the gas, knowing this was their only chance.”
“I didn’t think anyone would really try it,” she murmured, letting him tilt her face up to better examine a tiny cut on her
cheek. “Especially since I parked on top of the access to the tanks. I thought that would be enough to signal people that
someone was here.”
“Gasoline is worth the risk,” he said briefly.
He touched a place on her cheekbone that had her jerking away with a surprised “Ouch!”
“Still some glass in there. Hold still.” He bent and extracted a pair of long tweezers from the tackle box, then matter-of-factly
seized the sliver of glass and pulled it out. She felt a fresh trickle of hot blood down her face, which he swabbed away before
applying pressure to her cheekbone.
In a night of unbelievable happenings, perhaps the most unbelievable was that his touch soothed her ragged nerves to the point
she stopped shaking, stopped feeling as if her next breath would be accompanied by a panic attack. The strangest thing was
that while he was blaming himself because she was hurt he wasn’t acting as if she’d been out of her depth.
She would have said without hesitation that she’d been out of her depth and she never wanted to do anything like that again, but
she’d managed. She hadn’t panicked, and her worst fears had been for Olivia. One thing for certain, she’d learned from the
encounter. If she ever thought she might face armed men again, she would make sure she had a bigger rifle and better cover.
So perhaps she’d been deeper than she liked, but she’d still managed to stay afloat.
Lord, she hoped she never had to do anything like that again.
He put small adhesive bandages over a couple of the worst cuts, the ones that wanted to keep bleeding. “Anywhere else?”
“Just my hand, but I can take care of that.”
“Let me see.”
He held her right hand in his left one, gently cleaned the small cuts there, wiped away the blood. The cuts were minor, and
had already stopped bleeding.
“Will she be okay?” Olivia asked in a small voice, hovering anxiously nearby.
“She’s fine,” Ben said, hunkering down to put the first-aid tackle box in order and secure the latches. “Just some little
cuts.” He glanced up at her. “How about you?”
“I’m good. Sela was between me and the window.” Olivia edged closer to them, her worried gaze skating over Sela’s features
as if assuring herself once again that they were both, indeed, all in one piece. “Gran’s going to have a shit hemorrhage,”
she informed them.
Ben’s mouth twitched. He didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile, but she saw the slight crinkling at the corners of his eyes. Sela
opened her mouth to scold Olivia over her language, then shut it. After a fifteen-year-old girl stood side by side with her
shooting at a group of men who were trying to kill them, she wasn’t going to fuss at the kid about her language. “I imagine
so,” she said instead.
Now that Ben had taken care of first aid, the others moved closer and surrounded them.
“Did you get a look at any of the cars?” Trey asked her.
“I couldn’t tell you colors, or anything like that. There were two cars, three pickups. I might’ve missed someone, in the
dark, but I counted six men. When they saw all of the headlights heading this way, they scattered. None of them had their
own headlights on.”
“Do you think you hit anyone?” Ben’s voice had gone into that dark place again. “Or any of the vehicles?”
“It’s likely we hit a truck or two,” Sela replied. “As for people . . . I don’t know.”
“I think I did,” Olivia said. “I think I shot someone.” The last two words wavered, and she gulped back tears.
“Sometimes you gotta,” Ben said, so calmly accepting that Olivia straightened. He turned to the group surrounding them. “How
about some of you get your flashlights and look for blood on the ground? Sela, about where were the vehicles positioned?”
“All around the parking lot,” she replied, indicating the area with a sweep of her hand.
Several men went to their trucks to get their flashlights, and in the case of a couple of them, handheld spotlights. Others
got in their vehicles and moved them back, out of the designated area. Ben watched for a silent half minute, then turned back.
“I didn’t pass anyone driving without lights.”
“They’d have taken the side roads, stayed off the highway,” Harley Johnson said. “And if they knew the side roads, that means
they’re local.”
“Found some blood,” Trey sang out. He was standing at the edge of the parking lot directly in front of the store, looking
down. Ben and the others strode over; Sela and Olivia stayed where they were. She took Olivia’s hand. Just an hour ago she’d
have been deeply upset at the possibility she had shot and wounded someone, but she and Olivia had been on the receiving end
of their shots, and she found it difficult to care. Considering how fast all of the attackers had been moving, she doubted any of
their wounds were fatal. Pity.
Evidently she had a small wellspring of savage in her, after all.
Ben and the others returned. He stood in the center and looked around at all of them, effortlessly assuming the role of authority.
They were tough men, men who were used to hard work, to hunting for food to feed their families, to putting themselves on
the line, but they all looked to him without hesitation. He had been the one that from the beginning they’d all wanted involved,
and now that he was here they’d have to be fools to not listen to him.
“We need to look at every vehicle. Like Sela said, the odds are more than one of them took a bullet. We also know at least
one person was wounded. Talk to people, find out who got hurt tonight, supposedly while hunting or something like that.” Ben
looked around at all the men, his gaze hard. “Pay attention to everything. There’ll be threats from the outside, but right
now the biggest danger is from people right here in the valley.”