But Griffin was turning, stretching his shoulder, lifting his gun.
The black streak was closer.
Griffin’s shot took him down.
He ran to the dark figure and turned him over on his stomach with one foot.
Another corking noise.
I felt something streak by me, moving quickly. I touched my cheek. Blood?
“Down!” Griffin screamed. “There’s more than one. They’re shooting with silencers.”
I hit the floor. I’d been grazed by a bullet. It had been right next to my cheek.
He turned, taking shots in the direction that the bullet that had nearly hit me had come from.
Bullets kept coming.
I crawled across the floor, raising my gun to send shots after Griffin’s. Maybe I wasn’t hitting anything, but maybe I was. I didn’t know what else to do.
Griffin grabbed me, and we stumbled for the door to the garage, his body between mine and the bullets.
He yelped.
“Griffin?”
He hurled us inside the door. We tumbled down the steps.
“Under the steps, doll,” he gasped. “Lie down and don’t move. I’m going dark.”
He’d been shot. There was blood trickling down his forehead. “Going dark?”
He pulled me under the steps. There was a tarp lying there, and we crawled under it. He lay on his back.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” he said.
And then he went motionless. It was like when I’d been shot before. When I’d been pulled down into Alice and Wonderland world for a few minutes. It was like death, only he wasn’t dead.
He wasn’t dead.
I clung to his inert body.
Someone on the steps. I heard the noise.
I froze, afraid to even breathe.
Under the tarp, I couldn’t see anything. I had to wait in the stifling darkness, holding tight to Griffin. I heard footsteps on the concrete. Then a door opening and closing.
Did that mean whoever was out there had gone? I didn’t know.
I let out a cautious breath, trying to be as quiet as possible.
More footfalls on the steps.
I tensed up again.
The door opened back up.
“You’re awake,” said a voice.
“Yeah, he got me good,” said another voice. “He was always a good shot, wasn’t he?”
“Lucky I was there. He was about to cut your neck open.”
“Thanks.” A beat. “So where is he now? Where’s the girl?”
“I don’t know. I saw them go down the steps, but when I got down here they were gone.”
“Don’t tell me that. If we go back in, and we botched the job, they’re gonna murder us. It would be better to die out here.”
If only I could see them. If only I was a better shot. From the sound of their voices, they were close. If I could be sure, I could shoot them both right now. But I couldn’t be sure. I might not hit them. And all that would do is give away my hiding place. I didn’t move.
“I looked outside. They might have gone back into the woods,” one of the Op Wraith agents was saying.
“The woods? Seriously? You think we should go after them?”
“I don’t know. Like you said, we show up at headquarters empty handed, it doesn’t look good for us.”
“You’re right. I know it. But damn it all. The motherfucking woods.”
“Come on. The longer we sit here talking, the farther away they’re getting.”
I heard the door open and close again.
I let out a noisy sigh of relief. They were looking in the woods. That was a good thing, right?
Griffin gasped beside me. “Doll?”
I kissed him. “You’re okay.”
* * *
I took the stairs to my apartment two at a time, Griffin urging me on from behind.
I felt numb and cold, like I was deep inside a refrigerator and the world was running past me too fast. Everything had been turned upside down. My best friend was dead. It was my fault. Op Wraith knew where I was. I wasn’t safe here in Thomas anymore.