Sykes stumbled as the rounds continued to tear holes in him. He fell to his knees and toppled on his face. One machine gun shot into his body a second longer, and then stopped.
Jett inched herself toward Magilla in an awkward crawling motion, like her arms and legs were not quite connected to her body. She made it two feet, then couldn’t go any further.
Magilla’s head rose an inch off the pavement and he saw her. He used his arms and dragged himself forward, leaving a wet, red trail three feet wide behind him.
“Sykes,” I gasped, and that was all I could get out. I didn’t know how he was alive, much less moving, because Magilla Sykes was shot to pieces.
Magilla made it as far as he could, but his hand was a few inches short of touching hers. Blood trickled from his mouth. A tear ran from his eye and mixed with the blood on his face. Then his head eased down to the pavement, too heavy to hold up any longer, and his eyes closed.
Jett tried again. I can’t imagine how much effort it took, but somehow she scraped forward on her stomach for three very far inches and touched Magilla’s hand with the tips of her fingers, then she collapsed, unconscious.
Magilla’s eyes opened at her touch, and his voice, faint and fragile, broke as it faded, “Jettt…”
I watched his eyes glaze over and the last light go out of them.
I tried to move again. Nothing. I looked at Hondo and couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The sounds of sirens were faint and far in the distance.
Shadows slipped across my face. John Wesley and Ajax Berenko stood above me. Berenko held an AK-47 and smiled as he looked at Magilla. I tried to move my hand and a finger twitched.
Berenko saw it and stepped on my hand, grinding it into the pavement. “Don’t move, funny man.”
I croaked, “Closer.”
He grinned as if this was all a big joke, and then squatted beside me.
I spat blood in his face. Ajax jerked back and John Wesley stuck his pistol between my eyes.
Ajax said, “No, no.” John Wesley stood up.
“Be my pleasure to do it,” John Wesley said.
Using his handkerchief to wipe his face clean, Ajax said, “He’s not worth it. We’ll take the girl someplace where I can work on her and get what she knows. This clown and his pussy partner, they’re nothing.”
I croaked, “Gonna…”
“Sure,” Ajax said, then his boot flew toward my face and I fell into darkness.
CHAPTER 16
I came up out of a fog to see Emma Storm on TV, pointing at Shamu, half-buried in a small hill of dumpsters.
She said, “This is where the carnage erupted earlier today when my friends,” Emma stopped a moment and gathered herself together, “My friends Hondo Wells and Ronny Baca were set upon by more than a dozen heavily armed criminals.”
I looked around and saw I was in a hospital room, with a nurse on one side of me writing on a clipboard.
Archie sat in a chair by the window and Vick Best sat beside me, holding my hand.
Both of them watched the TV and didn’t realize I was awake.
I croaked to Vick, “Does this mean we’re going steady?”
His eyes lit up, then he let go of my hand. “You turd,” he said. “You’re gonna make me and Archie old before our time.”
I let the opening for a great zinger go by. I cleared my throat and said, “Hondo?”
Archie came over to stand by the bed and said, “He’s in ICU. They won’t let us see him. I talked to the Doctor and he said Hondo hasn’t regained consciousness. They aren’t sure of the damage.” Archie ran a hand through his hair and said, “Until he comes out of it they won’t know.”
His look told me the rest. I said, “And there’s a chance he won’t come out of it.”