Page 66 of Painless
How long had Tash been planning this attack? Since I shot down that first drone weeks ago? Earlier?
A loud blast stopped me in my tracks. I crouched low, covering my head, my ears ringing. That one was close, probably no more than fifty feet away. The harrowing scream that followed it pushed me to my feet.
"Jandro!"a woman's voice wailed. Mariposa's voice.
I pumped my arms and legs hard, sprinting toward her voice at top speed. My heart felt like it was going to burst from my chest, and it had nothing to do with how hard I was running.
Dark shapes on the ground slowly became clearer as I got closer. Some shapes were frantically moving, others lay eerily still. "Who's there?" Mariposa waved her hand in front of her face as Reaper had, her hair wild and tangled.
"It's me, Shadow." I reached out and touched her shoulder, not realizing it until I felt her arm trembling under my hand. "Are you hurt?"
"No, but—"
Ear-splitting cries cut her off, coming from the ground near my feet. I took my hand from her shoulder and looked down. Two children huddled together, screaming, next to two motionless bodies.
"Jandro!" I lowered down, laying my rifle next to my barely recognizable friend. An overwhelming burning smell nearly gagged me through my mask.
"He's got a pulse, but it's faint." Mariposa yanked the children close to her, picking up the girl first, then holding tightly to the boy's hand. "We can’t waste any time! Can you carry him to my office?"
I grabbed Jandro's limp arms and threw them over my shoulder, letting his torso slide down my back until I could hold him around his waist and legs.
"Who's the other one?" I asked Mariposa, rising to my feet.
"Dallas." She led the way back toward the clubhouse, fighting against the children who were trying to run back out to the street.
"Is he...?"
She gave me a single look that told me all I needed to know.
"I'll go back for him," I told her, shifting Jandro higher on my shoulder.
"Thank you, Shadow. Fuck, I'm really glad you showed up."
“Me too. What happened?”
“Give me a second,” she huffed, pulling open the clubhouse door and yanking the kids inside.
I held the door open with my free hand, blocking the entrance with my body as Dallas’s children fought, kicked, bit, and screamed at Mariposa.
“Can you take them, please?” she nearly tossed the girl in her arms to a small group of women huddled inside. “Wait until the Demons say it’s safe before you take them to their mother.”
Finally free of them, she ran back to me, leading me down the hall to her office.
“Dallas shielded the kids from getting hit with a blast. Then Jandro came to help, and he shielded us from another one.”
“Will he survive?”
Fear was the feeling I was most familiar with. I feared pain, confined spaces, and the flashbacks that assaulted me without warning. I recognized fear in the faces of most people who looked at me. But never before had I feared losing someone I cared about.
“He will.” Mariposa wasn’t afraid. She was tight-lipped, determined. Maybe even angry. She reminded me of Reaper in that moment, holding back a storm with sheer will. “I’ll drag him back to life, even if I have to go all Dr. Frankenstein on him.”
“I like that book,” I muttered, ducking in the doorway to her office to not further injure Jandro.
“Yeah? You like to read? Lay him down on his stomach for me, please.”
I lowered myself to the level of her table, while she slid him carefully off of my shoulder. “Yeah, try to read anything I come across, really.”
“Jesus Christ.” Mariposa’s attention was back on the man she loved, lying face down on her table. “Why’d you have to do that,guapito? I love you, but you’re such a dumbass.”
