Chapter 20

Opinions are like orgasms. Women’s are more important, and they don’t really care if you have one.

-Fact of Life

Tobias

I couldn’t feel my legs.

I couldn’t feel my right hand, and I was fairly sure that there was a blood trail tailing along behind me from where I was army crawling, using only the strength in my upper body, to pull me toward the fucking mangled car.

I knew with one muttered curse from the man, and the angry woman’s reply of ‘shut up!’ that the two people in the car that had hit my cruiser, with my woman inside, had been none other than the Shaws.

Hadn’t they fucked up my life enough? Now they had to kill my fucking girlfriend—soon to be fiancée—and shoot me?

Though, from what little I could see, the only one shooting was Brenda. Whether that was because Ephraim was hurt and couldn’t shoot or because he wasn’t a willing participant in this whole clusterfuck was yet to be determined.

However, I could hear him yelling at her to calm down, but she hadn’t figured out how to do that just yet, as evidenced by the gun that continued to sound each time another vehicle showed up.

I couldn’t believe that she hadn’t looked behind her yet, because if she had, she would’ve seen me crawling toward her.

Whether it was due to the fact that she’d thought she’d killed me, or because she was confident that nothing would show up behind her from the woods at her back, I didn’t know.

Whatever her reasons for not watching her six were, I didn’t care. I just counted my blessings and started to crawl across the asphalt toward the car that was up on its side.

Every single move I made sent a shooting pain into my hand, but what worried me wasn’t the pain. It was the fact that I felt absolutely nothing in my legs. No heat. No pain. No nothing.

Just an oblique blankness that not only alarmed me, but it also sent shivers of fear slithering down my spine.

I’d been shot before. Not once, but three times. All of them had been minor in comparison to what I was feeling now.

A weird sort of resignation started to settle into my bones, and I had a few moments of regret as I made the last four yards to the car by sheer force of will.

As I came to a stop, a wave of dizziness rolled over me, filling me with what could only be described as acceptance.

This was it.

I was about to die.

I’d performed countless missions as a Navy SEAL. I’d been through two deployments. Firefights. Bombings. You name it, I’d been through it.

I’d never thought that I would die like this. I’d thought I would go out in a bang of glory, shooting my way out of a sticky situation.

Yet, I was going to die lying flat on my stomach, while I tried to get the attention of a woman yielding a fucking AR-15.

If I could get her to poke her head out of the car enough, I knew that the police officers would be able to take the shot.

I knew that, at least, one of the men on the other side of the line had a sniper rifle.

Brenda wouldn’t even know what hit her.

But as I started to beat on the one thing I could reach, the tire, I realized that it was hard to hear anything over the gunfire that was still sounding through the air around me.

Resigning myself with what I had to do next, I palmed my gun in my left hand—the one that I only ever practiced with if something were to happen to my shooting hand—and grimaced.

I’d never thought I’d have to actually utilize the skills, but again, I found myself surprised.

I crawled another few inches forward, and my gun clinked against the asphalt, sounding loud in the gap between gunfire.

“Did you hear that?”

I winced at Brenda’s suddenly sharp, raised voice.

“No, I can’t hear a goddamn thing because you’re shooting that rifle in my ear,” Ephraim bellowed. “You’re going to die. I’m going to have to watch you die. Your daughter’s going to be devastated. She’s just gotten to Germany, only now she’ll have to turn around and attend your goddamn funeral.”

Brenda said something in reply, but Ephraim interrupted her before she could finish.

“I don’t know why I should be surprised by this. You knew all along that our son was a fuckin’ rapist, and I supported you even when I knew you were wrong. Supported you through his death. I loved him, but he did wrong, Brenda. You can’t fault someone for something that they were doing to protect their own sister. You need to calm down. You need to put the gun down, and then you need to pray that this isn’t going to escalate into full out prison time. My heart’s not good, and you’re making it worse.”

“Oh, shut up.”

That I heard, and I wanted to applaud Ephraim for his passionate speech. Oh, and finally having the balls to stand up to his wife.

There was nothing wrong with supporting your wife and child. That’s how many wars were started. You believe in your family, almost to the point of recklessness. It’s human nature to want to protect your child.

What is not human nature is to support a child so much that you’re willing to take on the police to do it when there is no possible route of escape.

Even if she did manage to get me out of the equation, she wasn’t getting away with this. Her son would still be dead, and she’d be in prison because she killed a police officer.

I crawled forward a little more, this time not bothering to conceal the sound of my movement, and Brenda’s head appeared over the side of the car that was still in the air.

With it up on its side, the roof protected her at her front, and the undercarriage of the car at her back, meaning she thought she was safe…but she wasn’t.

I raised my gun and aimed it at her face.

“Drop the gun over the side and put your hands in the air,” I told her, my finger tightening almost imperceptibly on the trigger.

She ducked back underneath the cover the car created, and then came back up. Only, she didn’t drop the gun. Instead, she confirmed my fears, and aimed the weapon directly at my chest.

Before she could even squeeze the first shot off in my direction, the entire late afternoon sky lit up with gunfire. And none of it came from me.

***

Audrey

My head hurrrrrrt.

Oh, God.

I’d never even been drunk before, yet hitting my head felt like something akin to death.

“Tobias?” I called out, barely opening my eye to take a look at my surroundings.

What had woken me? Better yet, what had happened to give me the mother of all headaches?

Nothing looked familiar…not at first.

It took me seeing the lights flashing on the console of what I assumed to be Tobias’ police cruiser, as well as the computer lying in a crumpled heap against my leg, to realize where I was.

“Tobias?” I called out, a little more loudly this time.

There was no answer, and it was then that I saw the spider webbing of the glass belonging to what was left of the windshield.

A really bad feeling started to roll through me, and I swallowed, ready to call out once again, when movement from the door I was obviously leaning on had me nearly toppling out of the car.

The only thing that held me secure was the seat belt, which was only attached around my waist, and a hand that came up to catch me before I could hit the floor.

“Don’t move, honey.”

My breathing hitched as I heard my brother’s voice.

Even after all this time, it was still such a soothing sound to hear. Not because he had a nice voice, because that was for sure not the case, but because I’d never thought I would hear it ever again.

“Tunnel,” I whispered, my lips thick and tongue even thicker. “What’s happening?”

I could hear a rhythmic pop-pop-pop-pop-pop, but I didn’t pay it much attention while I opened my eyes even wider and stared at my brother expectantly.

“You were in an accident,” he said. “I’m going to cut you free of the belt,” he said. “It might hurt. Your head’s got a large gash on it, and you probably have a concussion.”

That explained why my head was throbbing so badly.

“Okay,” I cleared my throat. “Where’s Tobias?”

I was in his cruiser, after all. It only made sense that he was somewhere around.

“Cutting,” Tunnel grunted, pulling out the knife he always held on his person, and cut me free of my restrictions.

When I started to fall, Tunnel caught me up in his arms, and then immediately started to carry me off into the woods—not the way that I would’ve expected him to move me.

“Tunnel?” I repeated.

“Shhh,” he hissed. “Don’t talk.”

Then he crouched down, and leaned me up against the tree.

“I think you might need an ambulance,” he said. “Your eyes are so dilated that I can’t even see the iris. Does anything else hurt besides your head?”

He pulled off his shirt and pressed the white fabric against my head, making me wince.

“No,” at least I didn’t think so.

And why wasn’t he answering my questions?

Which apparently, I’d voiced aloud since Tunnel answered me.

“Because you’re not ready to hear the answers,” he said. “And I will…just not yet. Can’t have you going off all half-cocked like you used to do when we were younger.”

I glared at him. It would’ve been a whole lot more intimidating had he been looking at me at the time of the glare, but he was too busy looking at something over my shoulder.

“Tunnel,” I said again. “Tell me what’s going on?”

So what if I had to puke each time I said a word. I could handle whatever he had to tell me.

Which I tried to relay to him while he held my gaze for a few long moments, before seeming to come to a decision.

“You were in an accident, and the person that hit you is now holding the police at bay by shooting anyone that comes within twenty yards of the cars.”

I blinked.

“You got here,” I pointed out.

He nodded. “I came through the woods. Had to run about a quarter mile back down the highway only to double back once I reached a bend in the road that would conceal my movements into the wood line.”

That made a sick sort of sense.

“And Tobias?” I asked nervously this time.

He had to be okay. He had to be okay.

He shook his head. “He’s hurt. I saw him crawling toward the car that was acting as a shield to the car that the shooters are in,” he answered. “He didn’t look good, but at the time, he was still conscious.”

My stomach dropped.

“At the time?”

He nodded again.

“He’s hurt. Really bad, by my guess.”

“Oh, God,” I replied shakily, blowing out a breath. “Go help him.”

He stared for a few long seconds.

“I’ll be okay,” I whispered. “Do you want my gun?”

He laughed at me, then got up and walked away, disappearing from my sight in the next moment, leaving me with nothing but my thoughts, and the bursts of gunfire that broke through the silence every few seconds.

Shit.

It felt like hours later when the shooting started.

And not anywhere near the same sounding as the shooting that I’d heard earlier. Not the steady pop-pop-pop.

This one was a rapid staccato of shots. Not just one gun. Many guns.

I had no earthly idea, until later, just how many guns went off.

More like twenty would be my guess.

Whatever happened, I wouldn’t care.

Not at first, anyway.

After hearing all those shots, and then nothing but silence, I didn’t much think there was anything left to happen.

So I got up, despite the way my head throbbed in protest, and started forward.

My concern for Tobias was enough to have me loudly trudging through the woods, barely missing tripping over the fallen branches that Tunnel had so easily carried me over earlier.

I’d just reached the tree line, finally able to see the road in front of me, and blanched when I saw the cruiser I’d come from.

It was bad.

The trunk was just gone.

There was nothing left of it at all.

And the back seat…had there been someone in there at the time of the crash…I shook my head. They’d be nothing more than pulverized meat.

And then I saw the body lying on the pavement, and everything but Tobias was forgotten.

I didn’t once think about the people surrounding the area, or if there was any more danger.

The only thing I had eyes for was Tobias.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I ran, jumping onto the usually busy road and finding nothing there to hinder my path but bits and pieces of stray car parts strewn across the highway.

Something crunched underneath my feet, but again, I didn’t stop.

Not until I was skidding to a stop next to Tobias.

His eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow.

His face was pale, and I cried out in pain and frustration.

“Toab,” I took in the length of his body, noting the red stains that were bleeding into one big one on both sides of his legs. “Oh, God.”

Something touched my arm, and I looked up to find Tobias’ staring at me.

“You look like Carrie,” he said. “It’s the blood on your face and running down your shirt.”

His eyes took in the length of my body, much the same way as I’d just done to him, and he stopped on something in the middle of my chest.

His hand came up, and he ran one large finger over it.

I looked down, too, and paled when I saw the hole in my Kevlar vest.

“What’s that?” I asked, poking the same spot he’d just fingered.

“Gun…”

I looked up, expecting him to finish his sentence, only to see his eyes rolling back in his head as his body started convulsing.

I screamed.

***

We arrived at the ER thirty minutes later.

Tobias was rolled into surgery immediately after that, Tommy Tom, doing chest compressions.

That was the last clear view I had of him.

He’d been lying on the gurney.

One arm was dripping blood from his fingertips, and falling off the side of the gurney.

His head had been held still by the paramedics yellow cervical collar, and he’d had a tube down his throat with a nurse running beside the gurney—another Dixie Warden’s wife—Tommy Tom’s wife—doing his breathing for him.

His pants had been cut from his legs, and I was now the guardian of the belt that’d been around his waist until about two minutes before.

I stood there, looking at the belt, wondering how Tobias had walked around with it on when it weighed so much.

With nothing else left to do with it, I untied the belt and looped it around my waist, then tightened down the belt much further past where Tobias wore it.

Something fell to the ground, and I bent down to pick up the gold badge. The one that’d been over his chest, right over his heart, every single time he went out on shift.

And I broke.

I fell to pieces, right there in front of every single police officer who was in the vicinity and not currently responding to a call.

Nothing, I’d heard, brought the LEO—law enforcement officer—community together like when one of them was injured.

It didn’t matter if you were local police, state police or highway patrol, like my Tobias was. It literally didn’t matter. If one of their own was in trouble, and they were able to be there, they would be.

The proof was evidenced by the full hallway and small waiting area that this small-town hospital offered.

Nobody tried to come toward me, though.

The Dixie Wardens were also there with their women at their sides.

But they didn’t come to me, either.

I don’t know if I was just giving off a ‘don’t get near me’ vibe or not, but they left me alone.

The only two people who would’ve come up to me would have been Tunnel and Mina, but I wasn’t quite sure where they were.

Tunnel had disappeared the moment that Tobias had been loaded onto the ambulance.

My guess was that he followed the other ambulance that had the Shaw in it who hadn’t gotten her head blown apart.

However, my guess was that they’d either been taken to a different hospital, considering this one was full of cops, or they never made it to a hospital at all.

Whatever the case, my brother was likely doing something for me that might very well get him into trouble.

But with Tobias’ drying blood still on my hands and his utility belt with all of his things, I couldn’t find it in me to give a shit what he was doing.

Hopefully Ephraim Shaw suffered at the hands of my brother, because if he didn’t, then he’d suffer at my hands. That little fucker was more than capable of stopping his wife, and nobody in this world could convince me differently.

Someone touched my arm, and I whirled to find a man standing there.

He who looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

How long had I been sitting here?

My neck was stiff, and I wasn’t crying anymore.

Though my eyes were puffy and sore, my cheeks were dry.

It’d obviously been a while if my tears were dried.

“You my brother’s girl?”

I swallowed, tilting my head slightly.

“Depends on if we’re talking about Tobias or not,” I rasped.

My voice was scratchy, and I sounded like a man, but it obviously didn’t bother him.

The man didn’t smile.

But what he did do was nod his head. “That’s who I’m talking about.”

“Then yes, I’m your brother’s girl,” I told him, rubbing my eyes with the back of one hand, keeping the other firmly wrapped around Tobias’ badge.

“Our other brothers will arrive as soon as they can,” he said. “Only Finley, Travis and me are here right now.”

Okay.

Why was he telling me this?

As much as I wanted to meet them all, and I really did, I didn’t want to meet them under these circumstances.

I wanted to meet them when Tobias was awake and able to introduce them to me.

But I knew that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, and it was likely that they wanted an explanation as to what had happened to land their brother in the hospital with several life-threatening gunshot wounds.

I took a step away from the wall I’d somehow found myself leaning against during my spacing out. “Which one are you?”

He grunted in reply. “Dante.”

I nodded, then looked down at my feet.

This couldn’t be good for him. A hospital had to be the very last place he wanted to be after the death of his family.

Yet he was here. And if he could be strong, so could I.

“Where are the other two?” I asked him, still looking at my feet.

I looked up when he didn’t answer, and he stared at me oddly.

“The rest of them are at the nurses’ station,” he answered. “Trying to get information on Tobias.”

I nodded, then started walking, heading straight for the nurses’ station where I’d been sitting less than twenty-four hours before—blissfully unaware of how much my life would be changing in a few short hours.

Tally was sitting there, a worried expression on her face, as she tried to explain to the very angry men that she didn’t know anything yet because Tobias was still in surgery.

They weren’t taking no for an answer.

“Stop,” I snapped, my back straightening. “You’re not helping the situation.”

An angry man whipped his head around, this one didn’t look familiar at all. I must’ve missed his picture at Tobias’ house.

“Just who the hell are you?” he snapped.

“Travis,” Finley said. “Stop. This is Audrey.”

Travis’ ire fell just as suddenly as it spiked. “Toby’s girl?”

Toby’s girl.

“Yeah,” Dante muttered. “Toby’s girl. So how about you stop being a dick and let her speak.”

I wasn’t aware that I was going to speak.

But as they all shut up, and stared at me, I bit my lip.

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Some of it,” Travis grumbled. “Over the radio. Just that an officer, Toby, was pulled over for a stop and someone slammed into the back of his cruiser.”

I found myself looking down at the gold badge in my hand, then ran one lone fingertip over it lightly.

“Brenda Shaw…”

Before I could even finish, curses started to explode out of the men’s mouths.

I backed up, surprised at the vehemence, and stared in wide-eyed surprise.

“Should’ve known that bitch had something to do with this,” Finley snapped. “Reed is going to flip after that shit last week. I knew this was going to happen!”

I’d met Reed very briefly when he came by Tobias’ house the day we’d arrived back from our cruise—finding Tobias’ house full of people. He’d briefly said hi, introduced himself, and then had left within minutes after making sure that Tobias was okay.

“What happened, darlin’?” Dante asked. “Start from the very beginning.”

Dante looked a lot like Tobias, and it was hurting my heart to look at him, so I returned my eyes to the badge, and then explained every single thing that had happened from the moment I strapped on my CIVILIAN Kevlar vest, to the second where Tobias had been rushed to surgery.

“I’ve been calling back regularly,” Tally supplied. “The last time I called was about a minute before y’all showed up,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “I’ll continue to call, but the last time they said he was still in surgery and there was still no word.”

I brought the shield up to my chest, and held it there while I said a small prayer.

“Has anyone looked at you, darlin’?”

That was Finley.

I looked at him like he was crazy.

“No, why?”

He snorted. “You have blood all over your face.”

Oh, yeah.

I remembered that.

“I told them I wouldn’t be seen until I knew Tobias was okay,” I said. “When they tried to force me, I refused services by them.”

“And how will you getting an infection, because you’ve got a large gaping wound on your head, make this any better?” Dante snapped.

I looked at him, but I didn’t have an answer.

“Nurse, take her back and get someone to look at her head.”

Tally jumped up, eager to do what he asked.

Not because she wanted to obey Dante, but because she was clearly upset that I wasn’t getting looked at.

“That okay, Audrey?”

I shrugged.

I guessed that it was okay, but at this point, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about doing much of anything.

“You can do whatever you want to do, but I need to be close by in case Tobias needs me.”

“It’ll be okay, Audrey.”

I turned to find the rest of the Dixie Wardens at my back, and suddenly, I sagged.

“Okay.”

The knowledge that they were all here, and that they would tell me if they heard even the most inconsequential bit of news, was enough to allow me to give myself over to Tally’s care.

“Sean?” Tally called. “Do you think you could help me?”

Sean walked over without another word, helping me up onto the gurney that I wasn’t even aware that I’d been close to.

I was in the middle of the ER, with men all over the place, watching me get looked at, and I’d never felt so alone.

But I would deal, because that was what Tobias would want me to do.

He’d want me to deal.

For him.

For him, I’d do anything.