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

“That was a good shot,” I found myself saying moments later as the druggie writhed on the ground.

The cop pushed up off the ground and grunted out a, “I was aiming for his heart. Sights are off on this.”

***

One hour and thirty-six minutes later, I was informed that I was free to go.

My head was pounding, my heart was aching, and I would like nothing more than to get the hell out of that store and never come back.

I hadn’t stopped saying cuss words since the cops had started arriving.

Almost all of those cops being hot as hell, angry looking, and intimidating.

I was stepping out of the aisle that would lead me to the exit when a hand touched my elbow.

I whirled around, stomach churning.

“Should someone like you even be handling a firearm?” the cop asked.

I looked at his name that was embroidered on his shirt.

It read ‘Officer S. Spurlock.’

I swallowed and tried not to look him in the eye.

“Impulsiveness isn’t one of my downfalls,” I said softly. “Mostly, all of my abnormalities are vocally related. Mild OCD. I do have ADHD—attention deficit hyperactive disorder—but I don’t have problems with wanting to pull a cop’s gun and shoot someone with it—that’s impulsivity.”

He handed me back the bullets that he hadn’t taken the time to load in the magazine, and I took them and put them back in the zippered compartment of my purse.

The gun was confiscated the moment that the on-duty authorities had arrived.

Now that everything was calming down, my verbal diarrhea had calmed to almost manageable levels.

Now that I wasn’t so focused on myself, I could focus on the man that I’d tried not to look too closely at since he’d become aware of me. I started to notice how the man beside me was shaking.

He had a flush to his face, and he was sweating so badly that he looked rough.

But he had his arms crossed across his chest, and he had goosebumps on his arms and neck.

“Are you okay?” I asked cautiously.

He swallowed hard and shook his head. “I came here because I was running a really high fever and I didn’t have any ibuprofen.”

I instantly reached into my purse and pulled the small bottle that I always carried with me out of my purse. Shaking out four, I handed them to him.

He watched me with a grateful look on his face and swallowed them dry.

“Are there any other symptoms along with your fever?” I asked worriedly.

He looked… bad. He also looked like he was getting worse by the second.

“Dizziness, light-headed, headache. The flu is going around work,” he murmured. “I might have it.”

There was no might about it.

The man was sick as a dog, and it showed.

“You should go home,” I suggested.

He wiped his forehead.

“I will,” he said. “I’m just trying to focus long enough to walk out to my bike. But I’m not quite sure I should be riding when I’m so dizzy.”

He was dizzy and he shot someone?

What the hell?

He’d looked so calm and collected lying on the floor next to me.

I hadn’t even realized…

“I’d offer you a ride,” I said. “But I ride a moped.”

His lips twitched. “Looks like it wouldn’t matter. But, thanks anyway.”

With that, he walked slowly to the bike I’d seen him get off of earlier when we’d pulled in almost at the same time, and he put on his helmet.

That was when I realized who, exactly, he was.

Son of a bitch.Chapter 3

I ride a moped. Not a Harley. Mopeds whisper vagina. Harleys scream big dick.

-Hastings to Suzanne

Hastings

“I fucked up,” I moaned into the phone.

“You fucked up how?” my best friend, Suzanne, asked.

I pressed my hands to my still hot cheeks.

“Well…” I said. “I might or might not have just been in a robbery attempt at Walgreens.”

There was a moment of silence, and then my best friend started up cussing a blue streak.

And this time, I knew that her ‘fucks’ and ‘assholes’ and ‘dickbags’ were not the Tourette’s speaking.

They were the over-protectiveness speaking.

“Well…” I began recounting the entire process.

“Oh, Hastings,” Suzanne said. “You do realize none of that was within your control, right? Tacos are lock!”

“Yes,” I said, ignoring her random comment as I always did. “But I almost got about eight people killed!”

There was a long pause and then, “You remember last year when that reader of yours killed herself, and you were all banged up about it because she’d messaged you the night before to tell you how much your books changed her life, and you decided to wait until the next morning to answer her?”

I did.

That still haunted me.

A year ago I’d woken up in the middle of the night to a message on Facebook. I vaguely recounted reading the message, but had ultimately gone back to sleep because I’d been too tired to answer.

The next morning when I’d gone back to message her, I’d accidentally clicked on her profile. From there, I’d seen a ton of condolences and tags that had included her in them.