And when I saw Tobias go down, and disappear into the tall grass, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
It was almost on automatic that I reached for the handheld microphone that Tobias had been calling his tickets into all day.
At first, I couldn’t find it, but it was still connected to where it used to be, so I followed the cord down with fumbling fingers until I found it on the floor next to the driver’s side floorboard.
My fingers wouldn’t work correctly, so I had to use both palms of my hand to press the button and hold it for counter pressure.
“O-o-officer d-d-down,” I stuttered.
My mouth wasn’t working right, either.
My tongue felt so thick.
***
Big Papa
“O-o-officer d-d-down.”
Every cop’s worst fear was hearing those two words.
Every single cop’s. Every single cop’s wife. Every single cop’s mom.
I found myself on my feet as I listened to the radio go crazy.
Cops in the area that were able to hear the radio traffic started asking locations. The dispatcher told everyone to get off. Officers ignored her.
But no location ever came.
I stared at the radio, my heart beating a mile a minute, and I tilted my head.
Reaching for my phone, I called Ghost.
“Your sister with Fender today?” I asked him.
“Yeah, from what she told me. Why?”
My stomach sank.
“We just got an officer down call on the radio, and we don’t know where, or who,” I said. “Sounded like her.”
Then I hung up and called into dispatch on my phone.
But it didn’t matter.
As soon as I found out, I relayed the information; a few calls started trickling in.
Now I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Merridy!” I called to my new temporary secretary. “I’m headed to the scene. It’s only about four miles from here.”
Then I was gone before I could see the cute girl’s shocked look on her face.
Aaron, and three other cops—who’d been off duty as of ten minutes ago—followed me out.
Chapter 19
May your coffee kick in before reality does.
-Coffee Cup
Ghost
After my father was put in prison, it never crossed my mind that I would be worried about my sister again.
I thought that the only threat to her had been eliminated, and that without that threat around, I wouldn’t have to worry about her like I used to.
I was wrong.
After Big Papa had called with the news that there was an officer down, and that my sister was in the middle of it, I knew that that officer was Fender. Knew from the tightness clamping down on my heart that it was and that I couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it but hope that everything was okay.
But I still rode like a bat out of hell to the scene.
After turning on my radio, I heard the distressed calls that the dispatcher was relating to the other officers, who luckily stayed off the radio while chaos ensued around them.
And when I arrived five minutes, after the call from Big Papa, it was to find multiple other officers on scene, all behind their police cars with their guns in their hands.
I shut my bike off about a quarter mile back, and looked at what was happening around me.
From what I could tell, Fender had pulled someone over.
That car was in the median ahead, up on its side. Another car was across the expanse of the highway, front end crushed and also up on its side.
The sight that made me absolutely sick was the sight of the rear end of the cruiser. It was almost to the back seat, folded like a fucking accordion.
The lights were still flashing, casting an eerie blue and red haze over the immediate area, and cars were pulled over here and there, dotting the medians of the highway.
None of them were out in front of the cars.
But the reason why was answered moments later when an officer pulled up and got out, only to be shot at moments later.
“Fuck!” I hissed.
Big Papa, who’d been behind his car on his knee, turned to look at me.
Though we weren’t close, we were close enough that I could see his hand signals.
With a nod, I started to run back down the highway, past the surprised men and women who were huddle behind their cars, and then started to veer off where the road curved, straight into the woods that lined the highway.
Once covered by the woods, I made my way from tree-to-tree and only stopped once I was close enough to see inside the police cruiser.
My sister was slumped there, blood pouring down her face, looking for all the world as if she were already dead.
My eyes caught movement in the grass, and that’s when I saw Fender army crawling toward the shooter, his service weapon in his hand, and a pissed off expression on his face.
His legs were dragging behind him, and he wasn’t using them at all.
The blood trail that followed in his wake was likely the reason why.
I moved hastily toward the cruiser, stopping and kneeling once I reached the door, and waited.
Another cruiser pulled up on scene, this one from two counties over, and the shooting started up again.
“Brenda! Please stop! Please!” a frantic man cried out in frustrated rage. “You’re going to kill us!”
This Brenda bitch was about to feel the smack that I was going to lay down, she just didn’t know it yet.
Chapter 20
Opinions are like orgasms. Women’s are more important, and they don’t really care if you have one.
-Fact of Life
Tobias
I couldn’t feel my legs.
I couldn’t feel my right hand, and I was fairly sure that there was a blood trail tailing along behind me from where I was army crawling, using only the strength in my upper body, to pull me toward the fucking mangled car.
I knew with one muttered curse from the man, and the angry woman’s reply of ‘shut up!’ that the two people in the car that had hit my cruiser, with my woman inside, had been none other than the Shaws.
Hadn’t they fucked up my life enough? Now they had to kill my fucking girlfriend—soon to be fiancée—and shoot me?
Though, from what little I could see, the only one shooting was Brenda. Whether that was because Ephraim was hurt and couldn’t shoot or because he wasn’t a willing participant in this whole clusterfuck was yet to be determined.
However, I could hear him yelling at her to calm down, but she hadn’t figured out how to do that just yet, as evidenced by the gun that continued to sound each time another vehicle showed up.
I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t looked behind her yet, because if she had, she would’ve seen me crawling toward her.
Whether it was due to the fact that she’d thought she’d killed me, or because she was confident that nothing would show up behind her from the woods at her back, I didn’t know.
Whatever her reasons for not watching her six were, I didn’t care. I just counted my blessings and started to crawl across the asphalt toward the car that was up on its side.
Every single move I made sent a shooting pain into my hand, but what worried me wasn’t the pain. It was the fact that I felt absolutely nothing in my legs. No heat. No pain. No nothing.