Chapter 18
No bullet, no knife wound, no amount of glass to the eyes, nothing was more painful than watching Ricardo collapse with a grunt of pain that from him might as well have been a scream.
August was moving to him before he even realized it, dragging his bleeding heart to the dubious safety of the car before returning fire toward the shadowy figure at the top of the hill who had it in for them.
Shit, they’d played this so wrong. There was no dealing with a madman.
August should never have even entertained that NightRaven would have any interest in doing this the sane way.
His God complex was too big—that or he’d lost all sense of his original goals and decided to live in the moment, rating be damned.
Live in the moment. Ha.
Ricardo was alive, but August wasn’t sure how long he had to keep him that way. Given the way he was wheezing…if his lungs were involved, not very long. And he was still bleeding, he was still—
Two more bullets impacted the front bumper of the car. “A little to the right!” August called out, doing his best to keep his voice level as he stripped off his jacket—farewell, sweet Zegna, you were a trooper—and folded it to make a pressure pad. “Come on, I thought you were good at this!”
“Good enough to hit Mr. Torralba, I believe,” the smug bastard yelled.
Fucking prick. August fired an irritated shot in NightRaven’s direction and was rewarded with a curse and a barrage of bullets that took out the two front tires, making their little car slump down even farther. He must have hit too close for comfort. Too bad he hadn’t managed more.
“You’re not going to make it out of this alive, Mr. Morrison,” NightRaven called out a moment later. “Why not just stand up and take the easy way out? I promise I’ll make it fast for you.”
August laughed out loud. “Wow, you’re a funny guy. Absolutely hilarious.” He checked his magazine—four shots left. He reached for his spare, and—
A crack of lightning burned across the darkening sky, followed swiftly by a roll of thunder so loud it felt like being tumbled around inside a dryer. It was almost enough to obscure the next few shots fired their way, but not quite.
NightPigeon, because fuck that guy, was nothing if not persistent. And depending on how much of his armory he’d brought along, they might be here for the long haul.
There was no long haul. There couldn’t be.
At least the car was sufficing as cover for now.
August grabbed his wadded-up jacket and scooted over to where Ricardo was sitting in the mud with his right shoulder against the rear right tire, which was all that was holding him up from the look of the blood pooling in the water beneath his ribcage.
He looked up when August slid in next to him, but August didn’t meet his eyes.
He couldn’t; he would either start ranting or crying, and neither of those was helpful right now.
He undid Ricardo’s jacket, then his vest. “Where?” he demanded.
Ricardo tapped his left side, about six inches below his armpit. He opened his mouth, then closed his eyes and pressed his lips together tight against a shout as August pressed his makeshift bandage against the wound, hard.
“Suck it up,” August said harshly, then refastened the vest around the jacket. That would keep a decent amount of pressure on it and hopefully slow the bleeding.
“August—”
“No.”
“August.” His voice was wet, and when August finally looked at Ricardo’s face and saw the blood he spit to the ground, it felt like every hair on his body stood on end.
His husband’s lungs were compromised. He was drowning in his own blood. August was going to have to watch him die, just like—
No.
“He’s still up there,” he said briskly, looking Ricardo over for any other injuries.
He cursed the makeup he’d applied to him earlier; though it was melting away in the rain despite the weapons-grade setting spray, August still couldn’t tell how much of the pallor of Ricardo’s face was real and how much was fake anymore.
“We can’t go up the hill on foot or by car. ”
“Good thing we’re by a dock,” Ricardo croaked. “If you can get to one of the boats, they’re pretty easy to drive.”
August scoffed. “And how am I supposed to drag your ass to a boat while under fire, hmm?”
“You’re not.”
Oh, he wasn’t…
“Leave me here,” Ricardo said. “I can cover you long enough for you to get clear.”
It was rare for August to actually feel himself dissociate, to feel reality slide out from under him. He’d spent a long time in very expensive therapy trying to make sure this didn’t happen, but every now and then his subconscious mind got the better of him. And right now…
White noise filled his ears, keeping time with the rapid beating of his heart.
His vision went spotty, flaring with tiny crawling silver specks at the edges, like glowing maggots trying to cover his eyes.
His hand flared with pain as he gripped his gun hard enough to hurt, but it was a distant thing.
He stared at Ricardo but he wasn’t alone anymore, Laurence was with him, his sweet older brother who’d died so August wouldn’t, they were both here, together, and Laurence was smiling for him even though he was missing the back half of his head and Ricardo was bleeding through the bandage and he heard the sound of the hammer hitting his foot and crack, crack, crack the bones inside, and—
“August!”
He hissed as a sharp pain between his index and middle fingers flared bright enough to break through his fugue. August blinked and looked down as Ricardo let go of his hand. “The pencil trick?” August said hoarsely. “Really?”
“It worked.” He spit another mouthful of blood to the side. “You have to go.”
Oh, was he still on about that? “Mm, no.”
“August, it’s the only way we’re going to get out of this.”
How sweet and utterly despicable of his husband to phrase this like he wasn’t asking August to run away and leave him to die. “I’m not getting on a boat without you.”
“It’s not safe.” As if to make his point, a few more bullets hit the car, the tink of metal on metal even louder than it had been before.
Was he creeping up on them? Probably trying to get a better angle.
“Honey. You can’t help me if you stay pinned down here.
Go now, then you can double back when you find another dock close by. ”
“That’s not going to happen.”
There was so much genuine heat in Ricardo’s gaze it should have set August on fire. It was fueled by anger but, more intensely, by fear.
Well, join the fucking club. August leaned in and gripped his husband’s shoulder tight.
“I would sooner slit my wrists and go swimming in that piranha-infested lake with you on my back than leave you here alone. Do you understand me? I don’t care if that makes me the Juliet in our star-crossed romance, I am not doing this without you.
I’m not going anywhere, I’m not making some grand escape, I’m not doing anything except sticking to you like fucking glue, Ricky, so either come up with a better idea or shut your damn mouth and stop distracting me. Got it?”
Ricardo stared at him for a long moment in complete silence before finally saying, “There are no piranhas in this lake.”
“Oh, that’s your takeaway?” August snarked. “Rude.” Whatever, he would just—
All of a sudden, the most incredible sound August could imagine began to filter in through the trees and thunder and the patter of rain that was starting up again. It was the siren song of… well, of sirens. Not ambulance sirens, either. Those were from cop cars.
That kid had been good for something after all.
August lifted up just enough to get a shot off toward NightPigeon’s last known location. Three bullets came back. He waited another thirty seconds, then followed it up with two more.
Nothing.
Good enough.
“Come on.” August lay down beside Ricardo, dragged his upper body across his chest and right shoulder, then rolled onto his front and dragged his husband into a fireman’s carry as he did so.
“I can’t believe that stupid TikTok worked,” he muttered as he pressed up to his knees.
They’d be vulnerable to return fire the second he stood all the way up, but August knew the reason the side of his neck was warmer than everything else was from Ricardo’s blood.
Every other place his husband touched was cold, too cold.
“August…” Ricardo’s voice was weak, thready. August imagined his husband’s heart, usually so strong and steady, mirroring his voice.
“Save it,” he snapped, then gritted his teeth and stood up.
No gunshot. Nothing but the rustle of too many leaves, rain, and the lap of the water on the dock behind them.
Well, all that and the sirens, which were both a blessing and a curse.
No way was August letting them get shoved into prison, no thank you.
August hefted Ricardo a little higher and did his best to ignore the groan that ripped out of his husband’s throat as he headed for the boats.
The dock was small but there were several boats there. Surely one of them was—
Ah, perfect. He headed for the little fourteen-foot aluminum number at the end of the dock and stepped down into it long enough to lay Ricardo out on one of the benches, wooden and utilitarian but better than lying in the bilge, then quickly jumped out again and undid the rope holding the boat to the dock.
Ricardo’s eyes were closed when August got back into the boat. “Nope!” He patted his husband’s cheek. “No sleeping, no napping, no resting your eyes. Keep them open, do you hear me?”
The gaze Ricardo turned on him was bright with pain, but he managed a nod.
“Good.” Now, to get this fucking thing started…
It had been a while since August had boated, but a little cheap outboard motor like this, he should be fine.
Open the ventilation cap, just a little…
tilt the motor down into the water…prime it, where’s the bulb, where’s the—ah good…
now the choke…now the starter cord, and then we’re out of here!
The boat lurched forward almost violently, and August remembered too late that he should have started while the gear shift was in neutral.
Ricardo almost slid off the bench, but August grabbed the side of his jacket and hauled him back even as he shifted the gear forward.
They bumped the dock several times because hello, hard to steer when you didn’t have a hand free, but then they were far enough from obstacles that he could let go of Ricardo and actually work the tiller.
They shot off into the lake at high speed, and August had just enough sense left to flip the switch that turned on the floodlight at the front of the boat as the darkness began to close in around them.
Beneath the clouds and the driving rain, the channel was a flat, empty wash of gray. Up ahead were a pair of bridges he’d have to go under. One was fairly high. The other—a train trestle, he thought—looked barely tall enough for them to get under without beheading themselves.
August focused on getting beneath the bridge first and foremost. Little things like finding another place to dock, communicating in comprehensible Spanish to whoever they found there, and keeping his husband alive through all of it—that would come next.
As soon as they were past the bridges, they were in the lake. In the channel where ships passed either before or after clearing the Miraflores Locks. And up ahead—
Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. That was a cruise ship—an immense one, every level of it brightly lit with a series of waterslides jutting out over the decks.
Far from a tiny canal or demure little lake, they’d come out into a body of water deep enough and big enough to hold one, two, three massive cruise ships and—was that a tanker?
Fuck docking, a ship was the way to go. They were closer than anything on land and they had the ability to radio for help. Ideally, the kind with rotors and a pilot who knew how to fly like the fucking wind.
Which vessel looked like it had more good Samaritans on board?
August glanced at Ricardo…whose eyes were closed.
“Honey?” He patted his cheek again. Nothing.
“Ricardo?” Louder, closer, but still nothing.
Was he even breathing? “Damn it, Ricardo—you’d better stay alive.
Remember how you said I’d be the hospital’s problem?
Well, now that’s you. Come on. Open your eyes. ”
No response.
To hell with it. The closest one would have to do. August opened the throttle and sent the little boat roaring toward the floating palace, free arm raised in a desperate wave.
He’d get their attention, even if he had to run into them.
“Hold on, Ricardo,” he ordered. “Or there will be hell to pay.”