Chapter 30
EVAN
A crash, heavy and echoing, like a tree falling over.
Then a god-awful thump, like a distant canon booming: a sound I felt in my chest. Lee and I stopped in our tracks, listening for more.
We were at the side of the Branch property in the dark, weapons drawn, the bright moon overhead picking out a long, wide strip of mown grass edged on one side by the towering hedges and on the other by sparse, still bushland.
‘Sir.’ Lee’s voice was low. ‘What the fuck was that?’
‘I know as much as you do right now.’
‘Did you hear someone cry out?’
‘I only heard the two bangs.’
‘Just before the first one. Like a howl.’
I turned back towards the front of the property, started running there with Lee.
A feeling like a stretching rubber band was being pulled directly from my chest into the property.
I wanted to run through the hedges after my brother.
My heart told me he was in there. It was him that Lee had heard cry out.
Fry was at the cars, his gun drawn as well.
We all ran to the other corner of the property.
Looking up along the hedge line, there was no movement. No sign of my brother and Dodge.
‘He said we weren’t going in!’ Lee was out of breath. She swiped at her brow. ‘What the fuck, sir!’
‘Stay calm.’
‘Oh, Christ, Louis is in there!’
‘Yeah, and my brother’s in there,’ I said. ‘We stay calm. We think this through.’
‘Someone has to stay with the cars.’ Fry put a hand on Lee’s shoulder and pushed her gently. ‘For when Kalowski and Knowlesy get here. Go, Sandy.’
‘But you can’t go in as well!’ Lee begged. ‘That’s not in the training. First rule of rescue: don’t create more casualties. Remember?’
‘Fuck the rules,’ I said. ‘Fry, let’s move.’