Run to Ground(43)

The first thing she saw when she was no longer blinded was that Theo had slid on his sunglasses, which made him improbably hotter. Jules bit the inside of her lip hard. She needed to nip this crush in the bud immediately. Even if she hadn’t accepted that any relationship was not in the cards for years, just being friends with this man was a bad, bad idea.

Her eyes lingered on the way his upper arms stretched his uniform shirt. It took all her willpower to rip her gaze away and refocus on Dee, who was humming to herself, skipping a few feet ahead of them, happily oblivious to the fact that her older sister was being an idiot.

“What do—”

There was a strange sound, something between a crack and a thump, and then she was on the ground, a very large, very heavy cop on top of her. The sidewalk was hard beneath her, and Theo was just as hard above her, and Jules couldn’t figure out why he’d tackled her. She turned her head, meaning to ask him, but the intense, grim look on his face stopped her. Something was happening. Something bad.

“Stay down!” he ordered before rolling to his feet and running the few steps to Dee. She turned to look at him, her eyes and mouth rounding with surprise as he snatched her off her feet. Spinning around, Theo hunched over the little girl, as if protecting her. Jules’s brain still refused to work, refused to make sense of what was happening.

The sound came again, louder this time. A sharp pain bit into her calf, and she twisted to stare at the spot. A drop of dark-red blood welled before trickling across her leg. Her gaze darted from her injured calf to a hole in the asphalt walkway just inches away. There was a hole in the sidewalk. A bullet hole.

The sight finally knocked her brain back in gear, and she knew what was happening.

Someone was shooting at them.





Chapter 11


“Dee!” she cried, the word scraping against her throat. Before she could do anything other than lie there, stunned, Theo was running back toward her, carrying Dee with an arm around her middle. His other hand clutched Viggy’s leash, holding the dog tight to his side. He used his body as a shield between Dee and the shooter. “Inside! Go!”

His commanding tone had Jules scrambling to her feet even before her brain processed the words. Theo fell in behind her, urging her forward with the fist clutching Viggy’s lead pressing against her back. Although she knew she was running, moving as fast as she could go toward the door, Jules’s legs felt so, so slow—nightmare slow. Her breath caught in her chest as she sprinted toward the school entrance, trusting that Theo would be right behind her, keeping Dee safe.

Hugh slammed through the doors, gun drawn but held low. “Get inside!” he bellowed, his usual good-natured expression sharp and focused. He ran, slightly crouched, toward the stone school sign. Taking cover behind the monument, he scanned the area behind them, squinting against the bright sun.

The entrance grew closer, although it still seemed agonizingly far away. Her breaths clawed their way out of her throat in rough heaves, and Jules couldn’t stop her brain from picturing a bullet tearing through Theo’s broad yet vulnerable back and into Dee—sweet, lovable Dee. Even though she knew, she knew that Theo was wearing a bulletproof vest, the image kept running itself through her frantic brain.

They were only five strides away from the entrance, then four, then three. Hope began to trickle into Jules, even as each gasp for air caught in her lungs like a sob. They were so close. Dee would be all right. She had to be all right. Jules repeated in her mind like a mantra, Dee will be safe. Dee will be safe. Dee will be safe.

Just two steps away now. Jules reached for the door handle, ready to jerk it open, when the glass panel next to the entrance exploded into an opaque cobweb of shattered glass, the safety film the only thing keeping it from spraying them with fragments. Jules automatically jerked away, her back bumping into Dee and Theo.

“Shots fired at the high school,” Hugh’s voice barked from Theo’s radio.

“Inside!” Theo snapped, drowning out a rush of tense radio transmissions. He used his body to propel her forward again. Her hand shook as she fumbled for the handle, jamming her knuckles against it before she managed to grip the metal. Her fingers felt thick, clumsy, as she closed them around the handle and jerked open the door. There was barely enough room for her to fit through the opening before he was shoving her into the entry.

“Take them,” Theo ordered, shoving the end of Viggy’s lead and Dee toward her. Jules automatically grabbed both the dog and the girl. “Go! Get away from the door.” Turning, he reached toward his holster as he sprinted back outside.

Clutching Dee and Viggy’s leash, Jules watched Theo run back into the line of fire. He’d saved them. And it might be the last time she’d see him alive.