Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

Nothing went through my head except for the fact I was going to die with Hartley looking down at me after all. And somehow that wasn’t as bad as it once was.

Something hit me hard and hurled me into the grass and mud on the side of the road. It had snowed the day before, and because it hadn’t been warm enough to melt, when I went down under what I abruptly recognized as a hundred and eighty pounds of Craig Hartley, my back hit the ice over snow, and it took every puff of air from my lungs.

Stunned, shaken, I saw the pale sky, heard a high-pitched shrieking wail before the weight on my chest lifted and the sound of machine-gun fire filled the air in quick staccato bursts.

Kelson screamed, and when I lifted only my head, I saw him lying on the same cold, hard, ice-covered ground I was splayed out on.

Already my back was damp. The chill was seeping into my skin, sending a quick tremor through my frame as I gulped air and sat up. When I turned my head to the left… only then did I see Hartley.

His mouth was open, and he was breathing, but it was labored, and in the next second I saw the reason. Blood staining his jacket over his heart.

Scrambling sideways, I pressed both hands to his chest, pushing hard, which made him wince in pain.

“Useless,” he husked as a tear rolled from his left eye down toward his ear.

“The hell were you thinking?” I rasped, my voice, fractured, stilted, sounding odd, frightened and hollow.

“Well,” he huffed, each syllable a labor. “I was thinking that no one is allowed to kill Miro Jones… but me.”

“Smooth talker,” I murmured, hearing my heart pound in my ears.

He tried to smile.

Lifting one hand, I struggled to get my jacket off. I needed to slow the bleeding and warm him up so he didn’t go into shock.

“Do not ruin a perfectly good Tom Ford jacket,” he scolded. “It’s no use. Just sit here for a moment and take the gun.”

I looked at the automatic rifle and then back at his rapidly graying face. “What?”

“Honestly,” he sighed, “how you’ve stayed alive this long… the driver is still—”

The sound of an engine revving caught our attention before the van drove off with a squeal of tires.

“Well, that’s heartening,” he deadpanned before he coughed up some blood.

“Shit,” I choked out, rummaging through his jacket for his phone, having left mine with Ian. “Where the hell is your—”

“In the van,” he whispered, letting go of the gun and lifting his left hand toward me.

I grabbed it fast with my right, felt how cold it was, and held tighter even as blood pooled between the fingers of my left. “Goddammit, where the fuck is everyone?!”

“Oh,” he said so softly I had to lean down, my ear close to his mouth. “You’re really scared, aren’t you?”

It was so useless now. He wasn’t a threat anymore, and yes, he was a horror, but somehow… not. It made no sense and revolved as much around the life of a mixed-breed dog as it did me and him and how he’d been in my life longer than even Ian. A very big part of me was defined by my interactions with him. I could feel it in my heart, in my stomach, the rising ache.

“I don’t—this isn’t how I wanted—we’re supposed to be even,” I said, turning to look at him, into his eyes, so close, our noses almost bumping. “I saved you, you saved me—how am I gonna pay you back?” I asked, my eyes filling.

“Next time,” he whispered, lifting his chin. “Come here.”

Without thought, I turned my head so his lips pressed to my cheek as he squeezed my hand, so tight for just a moment.

“Always knew you were mine,” he said, exhaling.

I stayed there, frozen for a second, and then turned to meet his gaze as his grip slowly lessened, and his hand would have slipped from mine if I wasn’t the one holding on.

The last tear slipped down the side of his face, and I brushed it away before closing his eyes.

It made no sense to cry. He was not a good man. He was, in fact, a monster. But somewhere between him shoving a kitchen knife into my side and taking a rib from me, and telling me that, no, my dog was not dead… he had become my monster. We were not what we once were, and in the end, he took a pair of bullets meant for me and saved my life. People would be writing about him for years.

I had no idea how to feel, what to think, but sitting there, holding his hand, seemed like the only right thing to do.

IT WAS quiet and still, like the whole world had stopped, but in another few minutes, I caught the faint sound of sirens.