15—Fight of his Life
Dallas slunk low, until he was close to the guy.
They were about the same size as men, and Dallas had a few advantages, and one big disadvantage, but something told him he was going to win this fight.
Maybe it was the way the pretty lawyer’s blue glow flowed onto him, seeming to be working with him in some way.
“Dumb bitch,” the guy muttered, and he did something that made Bonhi yelp.
Dallas exploded into a man, leapt forward several feet, and grabbed the guy around the shoulders, whirling him around.
He grabbed the gun barrel and stock and wrenched it violently, breaking the guy’s fingers.
The gun shot with a flat POP and the bullet tore through Dallas’ upper arm.
Blood arced, spraying them all. Dallas used his weight and his other hand and wrenched the gun farther.
The guy bellowed and swung around, falling on Dallas, but Dallas moved to the side and twisted the gun out of the guy’s injured grip, then moved away, between the guy and Bonhi.
Blood leaked freely down his arm, making the elbow warm.
The guy snarled and lunged at him, holding his injured hand into his chest. Dallas put his fists up, and tried to circle, but his prosthesis tripped him up. The guy lunged and got an elbow around his throat, and they tumbled to the ground.
“Oh no!” Bonhi cried, circling around them, tears and makeup streaming down her face, her hands out, her wet hair stuck to her face and shoulders. She backed away, toward her car.
Dallas head-butted the guy and worked his way out from under him, then climbed on his back, grabbed a chunk of his hair, and slammed his face into the weeds.
The guy cried out and wrenched to his feet, throwing Dallas to the ground.
Pain speared through his ribs. The guy jumped on him, and Dallas rolled, then jumped on the guy’s chest, grabbing him by the hair again and punching him in the face several times, until he dropped slack on the ground, eyes closed.
Dallas knelt over him, ready for anything, breathing heavily.
The blur around the guy’s body leaked away until it was gone, making Dallas shake his head.
Dallas looked over at Bonhi. “You okay?”
She nodded vehemently, her eyes wide. Her hands reached out in front of her like she could barely see.
“What about you?” she cried. “Were you shot?”
Dallas turned his bloody arm away from her view. “Only scratched up,” he lied. “Can you make it to the road?”
She turned that way. “I think so,” she said, moving through the weeds, hands out for the guardrail.
Dallas rolled into the foliage while her back was turned and shifted silently, healing the wound to his arm.
He shifted back, checked on the guy, rolling in the foliage again, trying to get some scratches on himself, then he went up after Bonhi.
His boots were untied but he ignored it, following Bonhi as she reached the guardrail.
“My phone,” she said. “It’s in my car.”
Dallas escorted her to her car, watching the unconscious man in the weeds. He lay still.
After a moment, Bonhi returned with her purse, keys, and phone. She held the phone up, showing the smashed screen. Her hair was plastered on her head and her lips were blue. “It won’t turn on.”
Dallas nodded and held his arm out. “Let’s go to my car.”
She nodded and moved right under his arm like she belonged. He helped her through the wet grass and up over the underbrush, to where his car was lit up. A vehicle came around the turn and drove by so fast they didn’t have time to consider flagging it down.
Dallas’ mind kept working over the blur that he’d seen twice now.
Could it possibly have anything to do with vampires?
He looked around. Were they sitting ducks out here?
Danger pinged inside his brain, and he leaned into his car, knocking his phone under his seat so Bonhi wouldn’t see it, then he took Bonhi around to the passenger side.
Her teeth were chattering. “Come on, come on,” he said. “Let’s get you safe and warm.” He bundled her into the car, then went back to the trunk for the emergency kit. He took out the folded space blanket and whipped it open, then took it back to Bonhi and wrapped it around her.
Her teeth were chattering harder, and more of her skin was blue.
Dallas ran back to the emergency kit and grabbed the heat pack.
He popped it to activate it and gave it to Bonhi.
“Hold this to your belly.” She did as she was told.
He slammed the door, then ran back to her car and popped the glove box.
He pulled everything out of it that could possibly have her name on it, then he checked the rest of the car—clean.
Dallas took a look at the guy on the ground and he was gone. Oh shit! Dallas ran to his car on high alert, then climbed behind the wheel, dripping water. He put all of Bonhi’s papers in the footwell under her, then wiped his face, put the car in gear and eased onto the roadway.
“Direct me to your house,” he said.
Bonhi didn’t respond. He looked over, and she was curled into a little ball, the space blanket over her head. Her voice was soft. “I’m so c-cold.”
Dallas turned on the car’s heat and cranked it up to max. “Shock,” he said. “We’ve got to get you dry. How far away do you live?”
“Fifteen minutes. Follow….” Her voice was shaking and she stopped for a moment. When she spoke again it was stronger. “Follow this road. You won’t need to turn until you come to Rosette Way. There’ll be a green sign.”
“Got it.”
Dallas drove on in the rain, peering at the dark road ahead, laser-focused on getting Bonhi to safety.
He checked the rearview mirror compulsively, but no one followed.
His leg popped into his awareness, throbbing in pain and tightness, but his prosthesis held.
He focused on his other knee, ignoring the pain with a calculated coldness he’d been practicing.
A few minutes passed and they drove in silence.
Bonhi stuck her head out of the space blanket and curled it around her shoulders with a crinkling sound. She graced him with a small smile and said, “Thank you for saving me.”
Dallas shook his head. “I almost didn’t.”
“You did. You were amazing.” Her tone was warm and authentic. He looked at her, seeing flat hero-worship shine from her eyes.
Dallas’ mind split in two directions. In one, he felt undeserving of her admiration, in the other, he felt a warm glow in his chest, a soft feeling of coming home. He tried to choose the better feeling. “Welcome,” he said, staring at the road.
“What’s your name?” she asked in a small voice.
“Dallas Manteo,” he said.
“I’m Bonhi Candor.”
He nodded. “You’re Jameson’s lawyer.”
“You know Jameson?”
“Yeah, I work with him some. Let me ask you, did that guy look weird to you?”
“The guy with the gun?”
“Yeah.”
“He twitched. He might’ve been on drugs.”
Dallas didn’t want to push the issue, but he had to know if it was just him. He’d seen it twice now. “What about… did he look… blurry?”
“Blurry? No, not blurry.”
Dallas shook his head, doubting what he’d thought he’d seen. “Who was he?”
“I never saw him before.”
“What did he want?”
“He just kept telling me to drive. I never did figure it out.”
She pulled her arm out of the space blanket and reached across the cabin, touching him on the arm.
He looked down. There was a ragged, round, bloody hole in his sleeve and unmarked skin underneath.
She examined the rest of the shirt, and there was another hole at his belly and his shoulder.
She touched the skin in both places, making his eyes roll at the pleasure of her soft fingers on his skin.
“You were shot,” she breathed.
She looked at him with something like suspicion in her eyes. He didn’t know what to say.
“How?” she wanted to know, her scent now broiling salty and stormy, like the ocean when thunderclouds gathered over.
A green sign came up in front of them and Dallas slowed, trying to read it in the rain.
“That’s it,” Bonhi said. “Turn right and drive five blocks. I’m the last house on the right.”
Dallas pulled into her driveway and stopped the car. Bonhi’s last question still hung in the air. She turned to him. She was no longer shaking, and her hair was starting to dry.
“How?” she asked again, her green eyes locked on his like he was on the witness stand.
“I want to show you,” Dallas said softly. “Can we go inside?”
Her pretty eyes searched his, and then she nodded. He opened his door and ran out to get to her side and help her out. She walked to the house with the space blanket still on and raindrops plinking on it. She opened the front door.
Dallas stopped her. “Me first.”
She nodded and let him go first. He scented the house and smelled only lovely lawyer.
A landline phone sat on a table in the foyer. She went right to it and dialed 911.
“Hi, yes, my emergency is that I was kidnapped! No, no, I’m safe now. I was rescued.” She looked at him with gratitude in her eyes. “I’m home now. It happened on the highway but I’m at 44 Rosette Way now. Okay, thank you. No, ah…” She looked at his arm, then said, “No ambulance needed.”
She hung up. “They’re sending a unit over now.”
Dallas nodded. “I’d like to check the house.”
Bonhi moved closer to him and softly grasped his arm. “I’m going with you.”
He nodded again. They moved from room to room, arm in arm, turning on lights and checking closets and found nothing out of the ordinary.
Back near the foyer, Dallas released Bonhi, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she turned to face him, her expression asking the question he still hadn’t answered.
Shit.
He stared at her blue glow, letting it convince him to tell her everything.