Laird hadn’t seen Weick fight in a long time, and he’d forgotten how good she was.
The wrestling in front of him made it hard to keep his eye on the barrel of the gun, looking for his opportunity to strike like he was waiting for the right time to hop into a jump rope. The gun went off again, Snowman managing to get his finger on the trigger.
A string of bullets swept from the floor to the corner of the ceiling, three of them hitting Laird.
“Laird!” Weick screamed.
At first, he didn’t feel anything at all, the shock numbing the pain. But then it hit him in three waves, pain and fire searing through his whole body, radiating from his calf, his thigh and his ribs. Thump. Thump. Thump. The waves coming again and again with each beat of his heart. Hot and fucking excruciating. It had been a while since Laird had been shot.
There were more footsteps down the hall, tripping against the scattered pieces of wood and glass, squeaking along the ancient wood. It could have been his mom coming back, and he would curse her out if she did. Laird pulled his body, every part of him screaming as he tried to get closer to the wall and away from the gun.
Asher appeared in the doorway.
“No,” Laird groaned.
His wide frightened eyes flashed to Laird crunched against the wall, bleeding out onto the carpet and then over to Weick and Snowman, tussling on the other side of the bed. And as soon as Snowman smelled Asher’s fear, his adrenaline seemed to double. He threw Weick across the room, slamming her back against the windowsill and her head whapping against the glass. Snowman hopped up from the other side of the bed, the sweat flying off his body and onto the bedspread.
Crazed brown eyes latched onto Asher, and a wide white almost-crooked grin came across the bottom of his face.
“No!” Laird cried.
Snowman didn’t even flinch. He pressed a thick finger down onto the trigger and hit Asher with everything he had. He seemed to be shooting forever, like the bullets would never stop coming out of the barrel, stuck on an endless loop of hellfire and Snowman’s petty revenge until the end of time. The force of it all sent Asher backward. Trying to catch himself on the doorframe, his body filled with holes and blood, skin floating off of him like a tattered curtain.
There was a thud as Asher fell to his knees, Snowman finally taking his finger off the trigger, smoke rising from the tip.
Laird dragged himself to the other side of the room, staying low and leaning himself against the bed to try and see. Regretting it instantly—the sight of Asher’s meek body like that—Laird averted his eyes, pushing the side of his face into the cool mattress, the sweat on his cheek and the blood from his stomach, sticking him to the already-stained sheets.
He blinked hard. Counted backwards from ten. But none of it eased the pain in his body or the new image ingrained in his head. Cameron had replaced his father with Asher—the image that would haunt him and that he would see when he eventually made his peace with God.
Chapter 33
Diana Weick
Nowhere, Texas
Everything was fuzzy. The heat, the house, the sound of shots, the smell of weed, her back cracking against the wall—it all caused her head to spin. But mostly, the source of it was the anger, the driving force behind her need to end this, once and for all.
After Cameron had laid waste to Asher across the room, he stood there, breathing heavy, the gun smoking in his hands, his chest rising rapidly. He turned the gun to her.
“Get on your feet,” Cameron demanded.
Diana put her hands to her ears, slowly standing. Her body was sore from wrestling against the twenty-five-year-old. It wasn’t like fighting an old villain like Zabójca or Voss. Cameron was young, spry and trained—driven entirely by emotion and whatever point he was trying to prove.
Lifting her hands by her ears, Diana walked with Cameron, the gun at her back as he led her across the bullet-filled house. They passed Laird, leaning against the bed, staring up at them with his hand clutched across his side and his breathing labored.
“I’ll come back for you,” Diana said firmly.
Cameron bashed her in the back of the head with the butt of the gun. More spinning. In addition to the jet lag, Diana was not in peak fighting condition. If she had been, maybe she could have saved Asher. Not that that was high on her list of priorities, she’d come here to protect Laird and his home. It was just nature—the need to protect the last remaining member of her SEAL team. But he was bleeding out on the floor behind them, and they were running out of time.
Cameron walked her down the hall and carefully descended the stairs. They managed their way around broken banisters and glass. They avoided slipping on scattered metal casings from the dozens of shots splayed out across the house. As Cameron took her out to the back of the house, Diana took a quick glance toward the driveway, her car parked behind Cameron’s—empty and waiting.
Outside, the warmth clung to her skin, sucking at the sweat on her body and coating her with a dry heat. Laird’s backyard opened up into a field that was mostly desert, the occasional bush and rolling hill in the distance but mostly just wide, gold and flat for miles. There were two old wooden buildings—one completely tilted, like it could be brought down by the slightest gust of wind. The other building was an old garage with a lock on a massive wooden door.
“On your knees, Weick,” Cameron said.
One at a time, Diana brought her knees down to the hard, parched dirt. Cameron rounded her, standing in front of her with the SMG hanging by his side,
