Page 59 of Senseless
And my supply was running dangerously low.
My magazine emptied and I’d only managed to graze a guy’s shoulder. I ducked behind the bar again, a bullet whizzing past my head and only narrowly missing me as it tore through more glass liquor bottles.
“Jen!” I yelled more insistently. “You could get shot out here. Get back in the kitchen with Heidinow.”
Her wide, unblinking eyes stared back at me, tears staining her face. I grabbed her arm in a motion I hoped was gentle, but she still recoiled at the touch.
“Doc, go back there with her,” I said, releasing her.
The older man nodded, his own hands shaking slightly as he started to crawl across the floor with his arm around Jen. “Come on, sweetheart. My old knees can’t do this without you.”
Together they shuffled through the swinging kitchen door and I breathed a sigh of relief knowing they were slightly less in harm’s way. Maybe it’d let me focus and aim better.
Another shot rang out and I quickened my reloading, but a male curse of pain from the other side of the bar was not what I expected to hear.
“What the fuck?!”
I looked over the bar, seeing two of them in plain sight in front of the window and didn’t miss my chance.
“Petey, d’you get shot in the fuckin’ back—ahh!”
The guy fell dead over the windowsill with one well-placed shot to his chest. His last observation before death set my teeth on edge. If his friend had been shot in the back, that had to be from Mari’s gun.
"Spread out and head for side doors and windows! Cover your fuckin' heads, someone's tryin' to snipe us."
“Shit.” I ran along the length of the bar, keeping low as I tried to track the guys, but we still had four of them to deal with and one of me.
Two of us,I reminded myself.Mari can handle herself.I needed to believe that she could, at least until I could reach her.
A rattling sound alerted me to one of them running through the junkyard, making a shit-ton of noise. I waited for him by that side door and picked him off easily.
“Bitch on the roof! Found our sniper!” I heard someone yell.
God fucking damn everything, why the fuck was she on theroof?
I started to run in that direction, the sound of gunfire just as rapid as my fucking heartbeat.
“Ivan! Oh god, Ivan,help!”
The terrified cry had my feet skidding to a stop, quickly pivoting to head back toward the bar. I jumped it and slammed my shoulder into the swinging kitchen door.
It didn’t budge.
I heard Jen’s screaming on the other side, and Doc pleading with someone to let her go.
“You shut the fuck up,” the trafficker answered and a single shot was fired.
Fuck! I pushed harder on the door, using all of my body weight, but the fucker must have shoved the refrigerator in front of it. I ran again, my mind set on the back door they used to receive food deliveries. It was the only other way inside.
Going that way wasted precious time, but I could only hope he didn’t intend to kill Jen or Doc. Jen was precious cargo to them, at least. Doc was more expendable. By that same logic, Mari should be able to buy herself some time until I made it back out front.
I reached the backdoor to find it open and swinging. Doc was inside, on the ground with a bleeding cut on his forehead. He seemed otherwise unharmed, but he was alone.
“Where’s Jen?” I demanded, my eyes darting around the kitchen that was now in ruins.
A scream across the kitchen answered me, sounding like it was coming from the back of the bar.
“He took her through the swinging door as soon as he saw you leave,” Doc said with a pained groan.
