“No!” the man shouted, swinging the Captain around to put him between us. “You think I’m gonna let you put me in prison like you did Wallace? I’m not half the man he is. The things they’ll do to me in there…”
He trailed off, lower lip quivering. “I know how things go with your boys down there. I won’t be in my cell for a week before some guard looks the other way while I get shanked to death as I’m takin’ a piss.”
Okay. This wasn’t working. It was time to change tactics. I wet my lips.
“That asshole you’re holding tried to get me killed,” I said, lifting the gun higher. “And this shotgun is loaded with slugs. Do you think I won’t hesitate to put one right through both of you right fucking now?”
He blinked at me. I saw his eyes dip to the shotgun, then back up to me. There was uncertainty flashing across his face now. It was time for me to make the decision for him.
I stared him down with all the viciousness I could muster, my body taut as a bow string.
“Put the fucking gun down!”
I let out a breath as he dropped it, the metal clattering against the wood floor. The captain kicked it across the room, quickly moving away from the Irishman.
“Get to your room, get under your bed,” he shouted at his son, and the boy fled from the corner as fast as he could, shooting past me to do as his father bade him.
I’d done it. I moved forward and tossed my handcuffs at the cowering Irishman, snarling as they skittered across the floor to his feet.
“Put them on,” I demanded. I left no room for argument in my tone. This fucker needed to know he had no options left now.
We’d have to act quickly. The SWAT team would be prepping an entry, especially after I went and burst into the house prematurely. I watched the man pick up the cuffs, preparing to strap them onto his wrists, his fingers trembling and his shoulders slumped as he resigned himself to his fate.
A gunshot shattered everything. The Irishman was stock still for a moment, as though time itself had stopped at the colossal sound ripping through the air. Then he collapsed, his face slack, eyes rolling as he hit the ground.
I watched him fall as if in slow motion, crying out as I spun toward the Captain. He stood there without a hint of remorse, holding the gun the Paddie had discarded only moments before. He was still aiming it at him like a cobra waiting to strike.
“What are you doing?!” I asked him as the sound of crashing windows and shattering wood rose up from beneath us. The SWAT team must have taken the shot as their cue to enter.
“I’m protecting my family,” he replied, leveling the gun at me. There was no joy behind his eyes. No care or compassion.
I tried to spin away, my head turning as he fired. A flash of pain seared through me and I collapsed, my legs simply refusing to carry me any farther, my body failing as I hit the ground.
I didn’t even feel the impact. I knew it should have bothered me, knew part of my brain was screaming that this was bad—really bad. I’d been hit. I was in shock, probably, which often did more damage than the bullet itself. I had to maintain my grasp on reality. I had to…
But it was no use. Every attempt I made to hold on to my life slipped through my fingers like sand sifting back into the shore. I expected my life to flash before my eyes, to see Momma and Jenny, to see Nathan’s face one last time, but all I saw was darkness closing in from the outer corners of my vision, creating a tunnel with no light at the end of it.
The very last things I saw as I drifted into unconsciousness was the Irishman’s gun skipping across the floor toward his corpse, his cold face staring at me in a way I knew we’d soon share. Darkness took me as the rush of boots clambering up the stairs filled my ears, then silenced.
18
Cold. Darkness. Pain. I had known these things before, but time seemed to stretch out as my senses began to wake from their unnatural slumber. Everything felt slower, almost as if I’d been taken out of the normal world and thrust into something supernatural. I could feel my heart racing in my chest.
My heart… A heartbeat… I’m alive!
The realization seemed to sweep through me, connections turning on as I could feel myself moving, little sensations of touch filtering through the fog. Where the hell was I? What was going on? I forced my eyes open, the blurry brightness causing them to clamp back shut immediately.
Oh, fuck. I’ve been drugged!
I had to get out of here. I had to do something to run, to save Nathan, to escape this place. I began to thrash in place, even as a pain shot out from my arm, searing into my shoulder and neck. I reached across my body blindly, feeling the tubes, struggling to understand what the hell was happening to me in this terrible place.