Then again, how long did it take to pull a trigger?
The tackle of a speeding whirlwind made the question moot. Michael hadn’t run quite the distance I’d hoped. Arm wrapped tight around my waist, he dragged me along with a strength I wouldn’t have believed was in his slim frame. I was still tempted to take another shot at Jericho . . . the last shot, but as it was, I was lucky to stay upright even with my brother’s help. The bullet wound in my side was taking a backseat to the throbbing in my head. From the dizziness, nausea, foggy vision, it was safe to say I’d bought myself a pretty good concussion when my head had hit that car door. The simultaneous desire to puke and lie on the ground to die wasn’t too helpful in keeping my eyes open for Jericho’s flunkies, but I gave it my best shot. As we moved, from behind I could hear a choked, ugly laughter. Jericho was laughing. Through an agony that should’ve killed anything more coherent than a scream, the son of a bitch was laughing.
The sound was unnaturally chilling, the throaty cackle of a hyena muzzle deep in warm entrails. Trying to block it out, I picked up the pace as best as I could. “I told you to run,” I grunted. “If you think that’s running, you can kiss a track scholarship good-bye.”
“I guess I’ll have to depend on my brain, not my legs.” His breath was fast but even against my jaw. “And I did run—just not very far.”
“Kids these days.” I could see our car. It was barely fifteen feet away. As far as I was concerned, it may as well have been fifteen miles. “They never listen.” My legs buckled as the muscles went from rubber to water. How Michael kept me upright I didn’t know. I had to outweigh him by a good fifty pounds. Add one-twenty to that and deadweight became a very real concept to a skinny teenage boy.
Savagely biting my bottom lip to the salty taste of copper, I straightened and ordered legs I couldn’t feel to move faster. No one was more surprised than I that they actually obeyed. As we fell against the driver’s door, I was already digging in my jacket pocket for the spare key I’d found tucked under the sun visor. Pulling it free, I tried to ram it into the lock. It was more difficult than it seemed as twin images spun lazily before my eyes. Double vision is less fun when it’s minus the alcohol.
Michael snatched the key from my hand and slid it home. Flinging open the door, he stretched a hand to unlock the rear before trying to shove me into the backseat. I grabbed the edge of the door frame and resisted with a growl. “What the hell are you doing?” Icy sweat beaded my forehead and I swallowed convulsively. “You’re all about the theory, remember?” I slurred. “You can’t drive us out of here.”
“Yes, I can.” The next push was more forceful, not to mention more successful. I lost my grip and tumbled in. “I’ve been watching you.”
Oddly enough, I didn’t find much comfort in that. And I knew of a driving instructor whose leg still ached in rainy weather and who would probably agree wholeheartedly with me. Slamming my door shut, he climbed into the driver’s seat. Two seconds later we were hopping curbs with the rest of the rabbits. Monkey see, monkey do might not be the best learning tool out there, but at least we were in motion. I couldn’t guarantee the result would have been the same if I’d been behind the wheel.
As it stood now, I was hanging my head over the floorboards and trying my damnedest not to be thoroughly sick. The nausea was a living, breathing creature clawing its way upward without mercy. Air disguised as ground glass burned my nose and throat as a vise tightened on my head with every heartbeat. I still had the gun clenched tightly in my right hand, but my fingers were losing their grip. They slowly unlocked and the Steyr dropped onto the rubber mat below. I let it. I’d half forgotten what it even was. Something as familiar as my own face had suddenly turned so foreign as to be unidentifiable. That and the warm dribble against my neck and cheek had me blinking in confusion. “Is it raining?” I didn’t need to see the puzzled look of worry that Michael shot at me over his shoulder to know it was a stupid question. Raining? Sure, because it rained inside cars all the time.
The hand I put to the back of my head came away red—poppy red like Natalie’s freckles. Long-gone Natalie and long-gone Lukas; they were two of a kind. Squeezing my eyes shut, I clutched desperately at the raveled edges of consciousness. No. Not gone. Here. Lukas was here, and he needed help—my help. He was in trouble, and this time I could do something about it. This time I wasn’t a boy trapped under a dead horse . . . even though I could feel the sand beneath me, the sun hot and liquid on my head. Sucking in a breath that didn’t seem to want to go down, I opened my eyes and raised my head to see blond hair haloed by oscillating red and blue lights. It was Lukas . . . just as I remembered him.