In the Afterlight - Bracken Alexandra - Страница 11

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The wave of pressure that came off the small explosion sent me stumbling back against the truck. It blew out the windows of nearby buildings and the back windshield of our pickup. The two soldiers were thrown onto the street, tackled from behind by the force of it. Cole moved toward them, unnervingly calm. His pistol was drawn out of the holster at his side, aimed with his usual precision. One shot, delivered to the face of the young soldier closest to the SUV. The other found himself hauled up, his helmet ripped away, and Cole’s fist slammed again and again into his face.

I couldn’t watch, wouldn’t—my heart was banging against my ribcage as I ran for the SUV. Shards of tinted glass from the windows crunched underfoot. The driver’s-side doors had taken the brunt of the impact, but there was movement—Liam’s wide eyes met mine through what was left of the windshield.

“Are you okay?” I called, wincing at the sound of one last gunshot piercing the air.

Liam was sitting straight up, his hands clenched in a deathlike grip on the steering wheel. His face was drained of all color, save for the red mark stamped across the left side of his face, and the rapidly purpling bridge of his swelling nose. The deflated airbags hung limp in his lap.

“Oh my God,” I gasped. “You guys—”

Chubs had already crawled into the back with Vida, and was squinting as he examined a gash across her temple. His dark skin had taken on an ashy quality.

The burning vehicle was eating up the fresh air around us, sending wave after wave of shimmering heat against my back. The roar of it consuming the metal and glass forced me to shout around the smoke I was already half-choking on.

“Okay?” I called back to them. Vida gave me a thumbs-up, swallowing hard, as if she didn’t trust herself to speak just yet. “Liam?”

My hands shook like crazy as I tried to work the handle on the front door, the enormous metal indentation popping and protesting. There was so much adrenaline running through me, it was amazing I didn’t rip the whole thing off its hinges. “Liam? Liam, can you hear me?”

He turned toward me slowly, coming out of his stupor. “I told him it would roll.”

I almost sobbed in relief as I reached through the window and kissed him. “You did.”

“I told him.”

“You did, I know you did,” I said, low and soothing as I reached in to unbuckle his seat belt. “Are you hurt? Anything feel broken?”

“Shoulder. Hurts.” He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself against the pain. “Chubs? Everyone...”

“We’re okay,” Chubs called, his voice surprisingly steady despite the congested tone it had taken on. When he turned toward us, I saw blood running down from his nostrils over his lips. “I think his shoulder is dislocated. Ruby, do you see my glasses? I lost them when the airbags inflated.”

“What happened?” Vida asked, pointing at the fire. “How did—”

“Bullet to the gas tank—lucky shot,” came Cole’s voice behind me. They were either too muddled or too terrified to really think the improbability of it through.

Cole shouldered me out of the way to get to the door’s handle himself. After a moment of hesitation, I ducked around to the passenger side, forced the stubborn door open, and knelt down. I felt along the carpet until my fingers brushed his glasses. Or what was left of them.

“Did you find them?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

I held the mangled frames and cracked-but-whole lenses up for Vida to see. In a rare moment of sympathy, she gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, “Yeah, she’s got them, Gran.”

The driver’s-side door finally came open with a scream of metal against metal. Liam rolled, trying to get his left foot out from where it was pinned under the mangled dashboard. All the while, he clutched his left arm against his side, trying to keep it from being jostled.

“Dammit, you stupid kid,” Cole said, emotions simmering just beneath the surface. His right hand twitched and jerked as he reached inside to help his brother. “Damn you—how hard is it to not get yourself killed on my watch?”

“Trying,” Liam said, between gritted teeth. “Christ, that hurts.”

“Give me your arm,” Cole said, “this is going to suck, but—”

“Are you doing it?” Chubs was asking, “make sure you’re in the proper position—”

I don’t know what was worse: the sound of Liam’s shoulder socket realigning, or his howl of pain that followed.

“We need to move,” Vida said, kicking the SUV’s back door open. “This piece of shit is totaled—we’ll have to get into the bed of the truck, but standing around here crying over each other is going to get us shot, and fast.”

“Glasses?” Chubs called, holding out his hand in what he must have thought was my direction. Vida took that hand and looped it through her arm, accepting the twisted wire frames from me. I stopped her, just for a second, to make sure that she really was okay. Banged-up, bruised, but not bleeding. What a goddamn miracle this was—

Clancy. I spun back around to face the truck, heart paralyzed for the instant it took to spot his dark outline through the truck’s back window. Shit. This is how we’d lose him. Chaos. Carelessness. I’d panicked—my mind had just blanked out with terror and I’d run. I hadn’t even thought to take the keys out of the ignition. If Cole hadn’t bound his legs, he’d be in the wind by now.

Be better than this, I thought, my nails digging into the palms of my hands. You have to be better than this. The adrenaline was slow to leave my system; I couldn’t keep from shaking, not entirely.

“You know, Grannie,” Vida’s voice drew my attention back toward them, “you have actually not sucked in this crisis.”

“I can’t see your face so I can’t tell how sincere that was....” Chubs said.

I slid the backpack fully onto my back, jogging around to where Cole was helping a limping Liam around the bodies of the downed soldiers, toward the truck. I couldn’t bring myself to look at them or assess what Cole had done in his moment of rage. Liam braced his bad arm against his chest. I slid my hand around the small of his back to help steady him—but, really, to reassure myself he was fine. Alive.

Liam tilted his head toward me and said, “Kiss me again.”

I did, soft and quick, right at the corner of his lips where there was a small white scar. Seeing my expression he added, “Saw my life flash before my eyes. Not enough kissing.”

Cole snorted, but his whole body was still tense with anger he couldn’t release. “Wow, kid. Unusually smooth for you.”

We lifted Liam onto the flatbed, laying him out next to Chubs, who was clutching the broken remains of his glasses over his heart.

“Oh, damn,” Liam said, seeing them. “I’m sorry, buddy.”

“Prescription,” he said in a low, mournful voice. “They were prescription lenses.”

Cole yanked the sheet of electric-blue tarp out from under his brother and spread it over them.

“What are you doing?” Vida demanded, already trying to sit up.

“Stay down and stay covered. We’re going to get as far as we can away from here and switch cars. Chances are they radioed this one in.”

“I would like to register the fact that this f**king sucks,” she said.

“Noted,” he said, shutting the gate.

I climbed back up behind the wheel again, soaking in the vibrations from the running engine. Clancy had finally gotten his hood up and off him, and even though I didn’t look over, I saw him watching me out of the corner of my eye. For the first time in weeks, the sullen irritation that had coated his every mood was gone, and he was...smiling. His gaze shifted away, over to Cole, who slammed his door shut hard enough to rock the whole vehicle. In his lap was what looked like a leather pouch, and a pistol that he must have taken off one of the soldiers. They both slid around as his hand continued to jerk, spasm, until he finally tucked it beneath his leg. The sight made my brain think Mason. Red. Fire. It plucked at loose threads at the back of my mind until I saw the pattern of how they were woven together.

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