"Come on, Quinn, wake up." Drew let panic fill his voice. He'd lost the gun and scrambled around trying to find it while pretending that Quinn was dead or dying.
"You're a bad actor," Quinn snorted. Finding amusement at a time like this, when Drew really had lost the damned gun. "It's under my hip."
Drew shoved his hand under Quinn, grabbing something. "Not that gun. Higher, dipshit."
"Sorry, Quinn, I'm so sorry. Please don't be dead!" Drew cried out, trying to make like he was shielding Quinn from further harm. "Found it," he whispered to Quinn.
He palmed the gun and pulled his hand out from beneath Quinn in one easy motion. The doofus dancing in the parking lot maybe wasn't a doofus after all. He stopped laughing and aimed his rifle. "That's not going to save your friend, feeb. Not at all."
Drew propped his arm on Quinn's ass and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times. The look of surprise in the man's eyes came first. Blood bloomed like deranged roses on the front of both of his thighs and finally over his left breast.
"You missed his heart," Quinn growled at him. "Should have given me the damned thing. I wouldn't have missed."
"I want him alive," Drew said, reaching behind him for his cuffs but not finding them. "I don't have any cuffs. They must have taken my holster … I forgot."
"Get off me," Quinn demanded, real panic in his voice. "He's not going down."
Drew aimed at the man struggling to lift the rifle and walk toward them. He lumbered in pain but he was still on his feet. "Going to put you down this time," he roared at them, but he couldn't lift the arm on his injured side. "Going to kill you and keep the pretty one. I get tired of dark meat … want a blond."
Drew fired a round into his other shoulder. The rifle drooped in his hand but he didn't drop it. He stayed on his feet. Still trying to move forward.
"I'm not going to prison. I will finish the job, feeb."
"Now, Quinn!" Drew shouted. He rose onto his knees while Quinn scrambled to his feet. He didn't ask for clarification on that 'now'. He ran. Picking up speed as he crossed the gravel, his feet barely touching the ground. He punched the guy in the chest on the side away from the gun and followed that with a jab to the fresh shoulder wound. The rifle hit the ground, but Quinn wasn't finished. He spun, kicking out as he came around and planted a boot in the man's right thigh. The guy went down like a load of bricks. Quinn pivoted to face him. He hauled the dude's arm behind his back and yanked his wrist between his shoulder blades and knelt on him, knee in the middle of his back.
"Oh, hey, Drew, I found your toys," Quinn called out as Drew struggled to his feet. His thigh burned like red ants were digging tunnels in his flesh. He could walk, barely. But that was all that mattered. Walking away.
Quinn had the guy cuffed by the time Drew got to them. He kicked the rifle away. "Don't touch that," he told Quinn.
"I wasn't going to." Quinn sat on the guy like he was posing with a fresh kill on safari.
"How long since Nat left?" Drew said, straining to hear anything above the sound of his own ragged breathing. "Where's Nathan?"
"He went the other way, chasing the chick." Quinn finally got off the guy and rolled him over. "Oh, hey, hey, I know you. I think. You look very familiar."
"Looks like that racist deputy to me," Drew said. He didn't know this guy from Adam. Just some redneck. Sick, twisted rednecks seemed to thrive in this part of the state.
"Yes, he does. Same lovely disposition too. No, I mean I actually know this guy." Quinn held the guy's chin in his callused hand and turned his face from side to side. Puzzled, he looked toward the dark cavernous end of the building where the windows were covered with tattered newspapers to keep anyone from seeing inside. Drew could just make out the faded and peeling remnants of the word ARCADE in huge blue letters.
"He used to work here when we were kids, I think. His old man owned the place. He sold drugs in the backroom. I got my first … " Quinn stopped talking. He looked back at the guy on the ground, lost in memory. "There was another one. One who worked at the plant. The one who paid … Cousins. They were all cousins. The whole strip here belonged to their family."
"And you were the Sheriff's boy," the guy sneered at Quinn. "I remember you too. You and that other one. Y'all thought you were something. Like a couple of princes among us peons. Still, your money was good. Wonder what the big fucker would say if he knew you were selling your ass on that corner right over there. He'd never fuck you again … this whole town would shun you. The world-"