Nico slammed the door open with a booted foot, and immediately passed through the open door, dropping down to his knees to allow Michael, who’d been behind him, a clear shot.
It was for naught, though.
Bryson Bullard didn’t even turn to look at us as we came out.
“You can’t do this, old man! I’m fuckin’ protected!” Bullard screamed.
Instead, his eyes were focused on the building across the street, at a certain window, in particular.
“James, what’s he lookin’ at?” I asked.
James was the sniper for the SWAT team, and a man damn good at his job.
However, what Bullard was looking at was not James, seeing as James was in a building catty corner to the one that Bullard was currently shouting at.
“You won’t take me alive!” Bryson Bullard screamed, turning to us. “That crazy fucking guy can…”
He suddenly focused somewhere behind us, and started screaming. “I’m so dead. I’m sorry!”
“Do you think he’s using?” Nico asked me.
I shrugged, aiming my gun at the man.
He had a huge fucking Oxygen tank strapped to his chest. Duct tape was wrapped around his middle, holding the tank in place, and he was scanning the surroundings of the roof like a man possessed.
“I won’t tell you!” He screamed, spittle spraying a three foot radius in front of him.
None of us moved, all of us backed up against the side of the building while the man screamed at the edge of the hospital’s roof.
I knew that if we weren’t careful with where we placed our bullets, the man would fucking blow up if they tore through the tank.
“If we don’t do something, he’s going to jump over, and then where will we be?” Bennett, who was on the other side of me, rumbled.
We didn’t get a chance to answer.
“You’re daughter’s a hot fucking piece, and I’m sorry I’ll never get the chance to fuck her properly! Just remember that I’ll be taking the name of the man who plans to take her with me to the grave! You’ll never get…” Bullard screamed as he raised a gun.
Although it wasn’t pointed at us, we all tensed.
BOOM!
The rooftop exploded.
Or at least felt like it had.
What was more probable was that the man in front of us had exploded.
Bits and pieces of…ick…flesh, blood, and matter, exploded around us as Bullard’s body was blown to smithereens.
“What…the…fuck,” Michael breathed. “I’ve never seen anything like that. And I was a fuckin’ marine for years.”
I snorted.
Nobody really knew what Michael had done before he’d come to Kilgore.
We knew he had a mother and a father, and that he was in the Marines.
What we didn’t know why he was the way he was. Why he didn’t date. And why he disappeared every five days…somewhere.
What I did know about him, was that he had my back no matter what.
He would forever protect the entire team with his life, and little impressed him.
Right now, though, he was beyond impressed.
As was I.
Along with every man on the team.
“What happened?” Downy yelled frantically through the headset.
Downy was our negotiator. He’d been on the bullhorn down below with the Chief.
Which meant he’d missed the show.
“I think it’s in my hair,” Bennett whispered, thoroughly disgusted.
I didn’t even want to think about things being in my hair. For now I’d just ignore it.
It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“Who shot?” Luke yelled.
Luke was pissed.
Which I guess he had a right to be.
However, as far as I knew, none of us had shot.
“Negative.”
“Not me.”
“Nope.”
“Nada.”
“Wasn’t me.”
The last one had been James. His confusion was just as apparent in his tone as it was in ours.
Luke growled in frustration as he walked further out on the roof.
“Well, it had to be one of you!” He snarled.
I started ejecting the shells from my shotgun, as did the others.
“All accounted for, boss,” I said, handing him my shells.
His eyes narrowed at me, but then widened.
“Well, if it wasn’t y’all…who the fuck was it?” He finally asked.
Again with the thirty nine thousand dollar questions.
There was only one possibility, though.
If it wasn’t us, then it had to be someone else.
And that someone else never touched us.
There’d only been one shot, and that had been aimed at Bullard.***Blake
I woke up and stretched my arms up high over my head, rolling over as I did.
I felt freakin’ wonderful.
I’d gotten more than enough sleep last night, sleep that had been denied to me over the past few weeks.
And I could thank Foster for that.
When he’d suggested we watch a movie, I’d been wary.
I wasn’t a big fan of horror, but it turned out that that didn’t even matter.
I was asleep within the first thirty minutes, totally forgoing all the scary parts.
The first thing that I became aware of as the sleep cleared from my brain was that Foster was gone, and had been for some time.
His side of the bed was cold.
Which made me wonder…why?
He’d been just as tired as I’d been last night, and he’d promised that he’d wake me when he went on his morning run.
What I could tell, though, by the sun streaming through the windows was that it wasn’t even morning anymore.
It was going into the afternoon.
Standing up, I walked into the bathroom to take care of my morning ritual before heading to the living room to look for Foster.
Who I found instead was anyone but Foster.
There was a woman in Foster’s living room.
A beautiful woman.
“Who are you?” I snapped at the cute blonde on Foster’s couch.
The woman looked up and smiled.
Although it came out more pained than anything.
Her eyes took in my pantless state, as well as Foster’s shirt, before she dismissed me.
“Alice. I’m Foster’s neighbor; I also work with him on the force. Foster got called out in the middle of the night for a SWAT situation,” she explained. “He didn’t want to wake you.”
I gritted my teeth at the slight curl of disgust her words carried when she’d said the last part.
“How long has he been gone?” I asked.
“Six hours,” she clipped.
I decided that maybe I wouldn’t bother talking to her anymore.