15. Michael
I understand why the people in town like to keep their business to themselves. While I don’t think the sheriff is up to anything illegal, I get the impression this guy walks the straight and narrow with a passion.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over. We need to get go—” My sentence gets lost in the look of terror on Dana’s face.
She was smiling a minute ago. Now she looks like she’s seen a ghost. Her eyes are bugged out, and the blood has drained from her face as she stares at me, her arms frozen and her lips parted. She looks like she’s struggling to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a lone tear rolls over her cheek.
Her hands shake as she points past me, over my head, and I follow her finger to the?—
“The bell is gone.”
SHIT!
Someone is already here.
But where?
And where the hell is Jack?
Without another thought, I draw my gun and lunge forward, grabbing Dana in my arms and pushing us toward the kitchen. I kick the swinging door open and try to shield her from the threat I don’t see.
“Jack!” I call into the empty room. No one is in the baking area, and I let go of Dana, backing into the room after her while I keep an eye out behind us.
“Mi—”
“Grizz,” I bark. No one hears my real name out here.
“I—I’m—I have a g-gun.” Stuttering, she catches her breath and bolts to the freezer, and that’s when I remember I was supposed to tell her about the bodies.
She pulls back the large doors, and her hands instantly whip up to her face, clamping together over her mouth as she muffles her scream with her fingers, her hands shaking and her knuckles white.
“Dammit.” Gritting my teeth, I reach out to pull her away from the freezer, as if that would somehow erase the sight of two stiff dead bodies among her frozen ingredients.
“Is that—” She chokes on her words before she gets to the part where she asks me if the covered body is her friend Stan.
“It is. I’m so sorry. There’s no time to explain. Just don’t look.”
When I grabbed Dana’s arm earlier, she was pliant. She allowed me to corral her into the kitchen, but now she’s stiff, unyielding.
But she settles enough for me to think. Jack went out the back, so we’ll need to follow, but he’s the one holding the keys to the SUV.
“Do you have our keys?” I get into Dana’s face to focus her attention on what I need to get us out of here alive.
“In my backpack.” She points toward the swinging door that leads to the front.
“Your keys?”
“Same.”
Going that way isn’t an option.
On instinct, I pat my chest, looking for my phone in my jacket pocket, and anger rises from deep inside me. Why the hell did I take off my jacket? It’s sitting out front, almost right beside the car keys and backpack.
We’re going to have to take the chance and run. Before I can push Dana toward the back alley, the swinging door moves inward an inch, and I pull Dana hard, pushing my finger to my lips and hoping she’ll stay quiet.
The door closes flush to the wall, but I know someone is on the other side, waiting.
If it was Jack, he would have come in. He knows we’re in here.
There’s no more time to plan. If we make it to the door, then we are outside, and Dana will be vulnerable. There are still three more shooters out there.
“Stay,” I whisper. I release my gun and turn it, placing the grip in her hand before pointing it down to the ground, and I move Dana off to the side. Stepping a few feet in front of the door, I haul my foot up and kick it, and the door bounces back before swinging all of the way open.
I made a connection.
I waste no time moving out of the kitchen and toward the man as he stumbles back, taking a glass display case with him. I follow him down. I let him hit the floor hard, and the case shatters around him. Then, grabbing his shirt, I haul him back up before he catches his breath and joins me, fists swinging.
He lands an uppercut, and the crack ricochets in my ears as my teeth lock together and my head whips back. The table behind me breaks my fall, and I roll off, trying hard to stay on my feet. He’s close to my size, so we’re evenly matched.
This is going to come down to who is the better fighter.
Legs shuffle as we move, crouching and assessing each other. There’s no point in talking out our differences; we don’t have any. This isn’t personal for him at all. This is business, and I’m standing in his way of getting paid.
Before we lock into each other, he takes a step back, pulls out a blade from behind him, and points it directly at my heart. We’re the same height, so disarming from this angle is difficult but not impossible.
As he lunges, I drop down and push his arm up, then snap my hands together. One hits the inside of his wrist, the other pushes the back of his hand hard, and the blade goes flying across the room. With my angle, I push all my weight up and into him from below, lifting him and tossing him backward, with both of us flying over and destroying a table.
I jump back to standing, trying to get ready for the next attack, and he rolls back, getting into his own position. His eyes briefly drop to my shoulder before locking on my own, and a sharp pain registers where his eyes just landed. Without looking, I know my wound is bleeding again.
There’s no getting out of this now. Without a weakness to exploit, it could have been a matter of time before this killer just gave up and left to regroup, trying for his mark at a better time.
But the blood trickling down my arm tells him this is the better time, especially since Jack hasn’t shown yet. I can only assume he’s been neutralized. I’m the last obstacle before this guy’s payday, and I’m a lame duck.
The decision to send Dana running outside weighs on me. As soon as she steps out the door, she is in the open, and I can’t protect her.
He lunges for me fast, pushing both of us back toward the wall, and I take a quick glance to see where the knife fell so I can keep him away from it. Then I feel an intense pain in my thigh.
He had a second knife. Judging by the hilt, it’s a small hunting knife, easy to hide, and the pain sears through me as he pulls it out. I grab his wrist, banging his hand hard against my knee, pain shooting through me with every movement.
“GET OUT!” I scream directly at the assailant, hoping he won’t realize I’m trying to get through to Dana, and the ghost of a smile spreads across his lips as he realizes he’s one step closer to getting paid.
I know when I’m at a disadvantage, and this is it.
I’m wounded from last night, and I have a second wound now.
Lining me up against the wall, he digs his finger into my bad arm, searching for the wound under my shirt. I clench my jaw, trying to block out the pain as I grab for his face, hoping to take out an eye.
Pain cripples my efforts as he digs in deep, pushing the wound further open, and I drop to my knees, groaning.
I hope she had enough time to make it out.
The scraping of something heavy grows louder along the floor. I force my attention upward, and his shadow blocks out the light from the window as he lifts a chair above his head.