Page 30 of Mason

He comes up beside me, resting a hand on the barrel of my 9mm. “Easy, Mason. We were going to play it cool, remember? No shooting.”

Bull-fucking-shit. “Before or after the traps?” I spit out.

“Relax, dude. I told you I was just fucking around.” Panic laces through his voice. As usual, Grady can’t handle confrontation.

I move the gun from pointing at the man’s face to his arm before firing a shot. “Well, I wasn’t.”

The man screams as his blood mists over my shoe.

Grady shoves my shoulder, successfully budging me from the man’s chest. “Jesus Christ, Mason! What the fuck are you doing?”

I want to fire again.

So I do.

This time, it hits the man lower on the same arm, entering between his wrist and elbow. He wails in agony, begging me to stop in what sounds like tongues.

I go to fire a third time into his gut, but a hand grabs my shoulder from behind.

“Mason, enough.” It’s Duck, and he meets my eyes with agony in his. His perpetual sneer is gone, replaced with a somber line. “This won’t bring him back. You know that. You need to cool off. Take a walk.”

“I know that motherfucker’s behind it,” I bite out, refusing to budge the gun from aiming at the stranger’s stomach. I want to keep firing until nothing’s left. “This bastard knows it, too. We need answers.”

“This isn’t how you get them, Mason. Take a drive.” Duck shakes his head while Grady crouches next to the man, almost shielding him from me.

I’m tempted to shoulder through him and shoot the fucker again, but Duck has a point.

Maybe I need to take a drive. Into the woods.

Maybe the answers I need have been sitting there all along.

I just need to get them out of her.

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