Bullets & Bonfires

Brady picks up the call. “Car thirty-two, headed to the four-fifteen in progress.” He pauses. “Send additional back-up.”

“We’re still at least ten minutes away.”

“Liam. You need to chill. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll handle it when we get there.”

My entire body freezes. My vision’s narrowed on the road in front of me, an object that stands in the way of getting to Brianna. “If he hurts her, he dies. Don’t interfere.”

Brady sighs but doesn’t argue.

Not wanting to spook Chad, I flip the lights and sirens off as we approach the street.

I bring the car to a halt at the end of the driveway and throw open my door. The only other car is Bree’s, parked right next to the porch. The driver’s side door is wide open.

The front door to the house is closed.

“Easy,” Brady mutters as we slowly approach.

From inside, there’s a shotgun blast.

“Shit,” he mutters. I take off, headed for the front door, Brady right behind me. At the door, I pause, listening for any sounds. I won’t be any good to Bree if I get my head blown off.

Brady motions that he’ll circle around to the back of the house and meet me inside.

I step over the threshold, checking carefully behind the door. The closet door’s wide open and I check that too before closing it.

No one’s in the living room, although it’s clear there’s been a struggle. Careful not to touch anything, I move farther into the house.

The back door is busted wide open, splinters of wood everywhere.

There’s a shotgun blast in the wall next to the door.

“Bree!” I shout. “Where you at, baby?”

“I’m here.” Her voice is so thin and strained, I don’t realize it’s her until she peeks out from behind the bathroom door. “Is he dead?” she asks as I approach, my gaze smoothly sliding over every nook and crevice of the house, freezing on the red droplets spattered across the white kitchen tile and out the back door. Dark spots mingle with a fine red mist on the wall.

Brady comes through the back door, shaking his head. “Where is she?

“I got her.” I focus on her reddened face. “Bree, where are you hurt?”

“I’m alive,” she answers, sounding as if she’s going into shock.

“Liam!” Brady shouts from the back door.

I glance down at Bree. “Stay where you are.”

Brady signals to me, and a second later I realize why. I jog over the wet grass to him. “This your guy?” he asks in a calm voice.

From the ground, Chad gasps for air.

“Jesus. He took it right in the gut,” Brady mutters.

I stare down at Chad, not feeling a damn thing other than concern for Bree. “I told you to stay away from her.”

Chad’s eyes close.

“He ain’t surviving that,” Brady says. “I’ll give it a few before calling the ambulance.”

“Shit.” I did not want Bree put through this. Being responsible for the death of someone—no matter how awful a human being—isn’t something that ever leaves you. Someone she was in love with? I can’t calculate the amount of emotional damage this might do to her. “Fuck!”

Brady watches my outburst with a passive expression. “Your girl did good.”

I let out another string of curses.

“Go back and make sure she’s all right,” Brady insists, giving me a slight push away from the body. In a lower voice he adds, “You know there’ll be a lot of questions thrown at her.”

“Not tonight,” I snap. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

He shakes his head, knowing as well as I do that Bree will have to be questioned tonight. “I’ll do what I can,” he promises.

Sirens fill the air and the sounds of cars skidding to a stop on the street reach us.

“I’ll take care of it. Go get her.”

Bree’s on the couch when I return to the house. Her cheeks are devoid of color and she looks so much like the frightened teenager she’d once been. I crouch down in front of her and place my hand on her leg. “Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Everywhere,” she whispers through chattering teeth. “He hurt me. He kept coming at me,” she says without meeting my eyes.

In a gentler tone, I say, “Bree, look at me.” I give her leg a tender squeeze.

She blinks and stares right through me.

“I finally fought back.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Pain.

Crashing into me from every part of my body. Battering and dragging me into a dark undertow then spitting me back out onto a jagged shoreline.

I killed him.

A man I once thought I loved is dead because of me.

My hands ache and throb. They’ve fought hard and it shows. They’ve been tested for gunshot residue, even though I told everyone I did it. I shot him.

It was either him or me.

Those last few minutes are a whirl of pain and fear. So much fear that he’d reach me before I reached the shotgun. Fear that he’d pry the gun out of my hands and use it against me. So much terror racing through my body.

Then his fear as he realized, too late, that I wasn’t fucking around. That I was done being battered by him.

Him or me.

More fear when I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him or scared him off. If he’d been hurt or I’d just made him even angrier.

So much relief when I heard Liam’s voice.

Then the horror of knowing I actually killed someone.

Liam stays by my side the whole way to the hospital. Refuses to leave while I’m questioned by the sheriff’s office. They warn him the State Troopers will be called in because of our relationship.

He still doesn’t leave my side.

My nails are ragged and torn. My cheek, throat, and jaw hurt. My knees, legs, hip all ache. Bruises are already showing, like a map of everything I endured tonight.

The painkiller they gave me barely took the edge off.

Nothing’s broken. On the outside, anyway. Inside, I’m shattered and splintered.

I want to go home.

Wait. I don’t have a home.

Liam brushes his hand against my arm. Afraid to touch me. Afraid he’ll hurt me. “Let’s get you home.”

“I don’t have a home,” I utter the words out loud this time.

“Yes, you do. With me.” He tucks some hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead. “Always.”

“Liam,” I croak. I want to tell him how much I love him and how sorry I am that it came to this. That if he needs to put some distance between us, it’s okay. We both know that eventually my shitty life choices might end up costing him his job.

An imposing State Trooper steps into the small hospital room where I’m waiting to be discharged. I can’t focus and my throat’s so raw I’m barely able to answer his questions.

Liam fills in the blanks, which only seems to irritate our interrogator. I pick up on the subtle insinuations woven into his questions.

How did Deputy Hollister arrive first on the scene?

What’s the nature of your relationship with Deputy Hollister?

How well did you know the victim, Deputy Hollister?

Victim my ass.

That last question, directed at Liam, pisses me off so much, it finally snaps me out of my fog. I throw the blanket off and point to my neck with one hand while holding out my other wrist. “Chad did this.” I don’t even recognize my voice, it’s so scratchy and rough. “He was trying to kill me. It was him or me.”

He finally seems satisfied. Or maybe it’s the fact that the day Chad was released from jail for attacking me, he defied the restraining order and attacked me again. That can’t look good for the judge who granted bail.

The hospital tried to call in a therapist, but I can’t do any more tonight. Can’t speak to another person.

Except for the bruising around my neck and every single part of my body hurting, I’m f

ine and the hospital finally releases me.

Liam drives us to his apartment while I doze on and off in the front seat.

“Did someone call my brother?” I ask when we step into Liam’s apartment.

“I’ll call him in the morning,” he assures me and I’m too tired to argue otherwise.

“Can I…I need to take a shower.”

“Okay.” He leads me into the bathroom where we both undress and he flips the water on. I don’t dare look in the mirror. I don’t need another reminder of the damage Chad inflicted on me.