Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 9)

I thought about that.

“My father is out of this world,” I said. “I’m not sure that I’ll ever get close to filling his shoes. In fact, he wears size fourteen, and I’m a size thirteen.” Appropriate laughter filled the air, but I shook my head. “I’ve had a really good life. My father has made damn good sure of that. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fill his shoes, so to speak, but I’m going to give it my best shot.”

Meredith was smiling after I said that.

Luckily, after the last time, she never directly spoke to me again, and the cameraman that was filming kept his camera pointed somewhere else.

Still, I had fucking rivulets of sweat running down my face from the hot fucking lights, and I was shivering by the time we were done.

“I just ask that you sign these calendars.” Meredith grinned. “We’re going to have a little auction ourselves. Did you know that they’re still selling out calendars on that website? We had to special order these.”

I didn’t see the point. It was now September and the end of the year almost. What was the point of a new calendar now?

I looked at the stack of calendars that she wanted us to sign and nearly groaned.

Goddammit.

That was the last thing that I wanted to do.

My entire body felt like a giant throbbing ache.

Fuckin’ A.

I plopped down in the most comfortable chair in the training room and waited for the calendars to be brought to me.

And eventually they were.

I was the last one to finish.

The last one to leave.

And the last one to walk into Walgreen’s an hour after that, ditching my gun belt at the station before I left, knowing that I couldn’t fucking stand to have it on another second.

And of fuckin’ course, the ibuprofen and Tylenol were at the back of the goddamn store.

I’d just picked up two industrial-sized bottles of both medicines when a squeaking shuffle had me glancing up.

Right into the barrel of a shotgun.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

My heart froze in my chest. The breath stalled in my lungs.

I also mentally cursed myself for not having my gun belt on.

But, with my attention not being as sharp today as it usually was, I decided that having it on might’ve made me an instant target.

“Everybody on the ground!” the man with the shotgun and the squeaking shoe bellowed.

I didn’t waste time getting on the ground.

The pill bottles made a pounding crack as I dropped them and moved to the ground as he aimed the shotgun around the room.

A poor old woman that’d been standing in the prescription line with her walker and a cast up to the top of her thigh whimpered.

“Down!” the man ordered, pointing his gun fully at her.

That was when I realized the man’s eyes were darting around too fast. His movements were twitchy, and his arms had puncture holes in the bends.

Fuck.

A druggie.

A desperate druggie.

Fuck and double fuck.

I took a glance around, ignored my throbbing head, and counted the number of hostages.

There was a woman with a baby in the far corner. She looked vaguely familiar.

In the middle of the aisle I was standing in there were five people that were in line, including the old lady, that were now lying on the floor.

And on the very, very edge, almost hidden underneath the ‘drop off’ prescription counter, was a beautiful ebony-haired woman. Her bright, cornflower blue eyes were staring at the druggie with the shotgun as if she was sizing him up.

Her fingers were clenching and unclenching, and she was opening and closing her eyes as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

Then, right before my eyes, I saw her mouth open, horror wash over her face, and then, “Pew, pew, pew.”

The druggie pivoted toward her and aimed his gun. But not at the pew-pew lady, but at the old lady that was now whimpering in pain.

The pew-pew lady’s eyes squeezed shut as if she wanted to rip the words out of the air and shove them back into her mouth where they belonged.

I army-crawled closer, accidentally causing the pill bottles that I’d dropped to crack with the pills tumbling around inside.

“He’s moving!”

I froze when I heard a woman’s voice—no, a teenager’s voice—from the side of where I was.

I whipped my head to the side and saw a young woman, probably around fourteen or fifteen, standing at the edge of the aisle with a smug look on her face.

The guy with the gun whirled around and faced me.

“Don’t fuckin’ move!” the druggie boomed.

Then, for good measure, he dragged me farther into the open aisle until I was only feet away from the pew-pew chick.

I allowed him to only because I wasn’t sure what the girl had on her. If she had a gun, I didn’t want to try to disarm the shotgun guy and make her take steps to protect the druggie.