Jean tugs my arm again, discreetly jerking her head toward the building. Archer’s there, leaning his back against the wooden wall. He lights a zippo and touches the flame to the cigarette's tip, pinched between his lips as he scans the lot with a hunter’s look. We’re fifty yards apart, but I swear he’s staring straight into my eyes. Straightthroughmy eyes, into my mind. A disturbing gesture follows the short stare-down.
A signal.
A nonverbal order not to move. He slides his right hand under the jacket, adjusting what I’m sure is a gun tucked in the holster. I can’t see it, but it’s there. I know it just as I know that one bullet hasLaylawritten all over.
Dante’s face flickers before my eyes. Hope vanishes, undermining everything I conditioned myself to believe. Pure fear starts in my chest and ripples in all directions. I deserve what’s coming, but I hate Dante’s cowardice. He should be the one to pull the trigger. Not a hired hitman.
“Get inside,” I tell Jean, my gaze fixed on Archer, my voice artificially calm.
There’s no reason for her to witness the execution. She doesn’t deserve the trauma and doesn’t deserve to die if Dante’s orders are to leave no witnesses.
Before Jean can askwhythe door on Archer’s left flies open. Rick exits the building, shoulders square, spine straight. Tayler trails close behind, and they split up immediately. Rick marches straight ahead, Tayler veers left toward his pickup, his steps rushed. I think he can barely stop himself from breaking into a sprint. Rick is ruthlessly focused, eyes on me as he crosses the lot, every step calculated to perfection.
“We’re leaving.” The powerful, commanding note in his voice could rival Dante’s tone. “Right now.” He looks over his shoulder, taking half a step to the right.
My mouth falls open because I know what he’s doing. He’s shielding me with his body, purposely stepping into Archer’s line of shot. Fear grips me by the throat. Cold, dead hands squeeze hard enough to cut off my air supply. My face tingles, and goosebumps cover every inch of my skin when I step aside, back into the line of Archer’s shot.
“You should go,” I tell Rick and Jean, eyes on Archer.
He just stands there, watching, waiting. Lethal. Determined. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
I’m a sitting duck.
“I’m not leaving you here.” Rick grips my arm to hold me in place as he steps in front of me again. I peek over his shoulder, wriggling out of his grasp, but his hold tightens.
Archer grows tired of waiting. He draws the gun aiming it at the back of Rick’s head. An earsplitting roar of Tayler’s tired pickup truck cuts through the tense silence. He’s too far away to reach us before Archer pulls the trigger.
Five bony fingers clamp around my upper arm as Jean inches closer to whimpers in my ear, “he’s got a gun. He’s got agun,Layla.”
Time fails to slow down. This is nothing like in the movies. No slow-motion action sequence. Only me and Archer, eyes locked as he slides his index finger to the trigger. I shove Rick away with all my might but feel him jerk me to the side by the arm he’s still holding.
Archer doesn’t pause. He doesn’t hesitate. There’s no loud bang, just a quiet hiss when the bullet leaves the chamber, slicing the air as it heads straight for my heart. It falls short of reaching its destination...
Rick’s attempt at moving me out of the way worked to some extent. The bullet goes through and through, half an inch below my collarbone. I’m in no state to stop and register the pain that screams up and down my arm like a lightning bolt, settling into the gunshot wound. Jean yelps, a high-pitched, horror-movie kind of sound. She ducks for cover when Tayler slams the brakes, stopping the pickup behind Rick’s back. The rusty piece of metal serves as a barricade, separating the hunter from the hunted... but it isn’t bulletproof. It won’t hold Archer off for long.
The passenger side door flies open. “Get in!” Tayler booms, his voice higher than Jean’s.
She’s inside before the words fully roll off Tayler’s tongue. She jumps onto the passenger seat, slides to the floor, and folds her arms and legs to fit in the space under the dashboard. Rick hauls me into the back, arms wrapped around my middle.
“Go, go, go!” Jean yells.
The back door is still open but slams shut when Tayler hits the gas. Chaos erupts all around. Jean cries Tayler swears, the old engine blares louder than a rocket as the car gains speed, and tires squeal when we jump from the gravel of the parking lot onto the asphalt of the interstate. Adrenaline mixes with fear, zapping my nerve endings, and works as a decent ad-hoc anesthetic. I push away the panic, forcing my eyes to stare ahead, not glance at the warm blood wetting my t-shirt, or my mind will cease to work.
“What the fuck did you do!?” Rick tears his shirt off his back, scrunching it into a ball to press against the gunshot wound. He applies enough pressure to balance on the verge of breaking my bones, trying to stop the bleeding. His face shows something other than cold calculation or moderate interest for the first time since I met him. He’s worried. His eyes jump between my face and his hands as if he’s watching a game of tennis. “You could’ve died!”
“Better me than you. I’m the one Archer wants. You shouldn’t have tried to save me. Tayler, stop the car. Let me out.”
“No fucking way!” Rick grips my wrist as if he half expects me to jump out of the moving truck. “Keep driving.”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Jean chants, tears streaming down her cheeks, tiny rivers of mascara. “What is happening?!” She peeks between the front two seats, scrambling off the floor to look at me, but looks out of the back window instead. “Oh God! He’s behind us!”
Rick turns around, checking briefly before his head snaps to Tayler’s pale face in the rearview mirror. “Put your foot down. Get us to the city. Somewhere public. He won’t shoot with witnesses around.”
“How did you know he was going after me?” I ask to redirect my thoughts away from my blood and the sudden onset of blinding pain ripping my arm wide open.
“I didn’t like how he acted since he saw you.” He glances at me briefly but returns his attention to the back window in a heartbeat. “The way he was looking at you... I’ve seen that look before, and I don’t fucking like what follows. Listen... I know we’re both thinking this, so I’ll just go ahead and say it. You’re not safe in Texas anymore. Dante knows you’re here. We need to get you out, hide you better. My sister has a cabin near Montreal. Tayler’s pickup won’t make the drive, but—”
“You mean Dante hired Archer tokillher?” Jean gasps in the front seat, her processing speed slightly delayed.