Page 49 of Outlaw Ridge: Ryker
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I-I didn’t go upstairs.”
Ryker exchanged a glance with Emma, then turned back to Charlotte. “Then stay down here. Living room, away from the windows.”
Charlotte hesitated, then nodded and backed toward the couch.
Ryker drew a breath and looked up the darkened stairwell.
Whatever was waiting up there, if anything, they were about to find out.
Ryker moved to the foot of the stairs. He kept his gun raised and his eyes were tracking the dark.
The hallway above was steeped in shadow. The light fixture overhead was off, and this part of the house didn’t catch much natural light even during the day. Now, with clouds thick outside, it felt like twilight had settled inside.
He called out, his voice firm. “Outlaw Ridge PD. If you’re here, make yourself known.”
Silence.
No creak of movement. No shift in shadow. Just the faint hum of the furnace and the thudding of his own pulse.
Emma took a position behind him, angled slightly, watching their backs as he started up. Second step. Third. The stairs groaned beneath their weight.
Then, as they hit the midpoint, a figure leaned out from the doorway directly in front of the landing.
Ryker barely registered the ski mask before the flash lit the hallway. Gunfire cracked.
He jerked sideways, the shot missing by inches.
“Down!” Ryker barked, already Emma and he were hurdling over the banister and landing on the bottom level floor.
The shooter vanished back into the room.
And now Ryker knew, Someonewasstill in the house. And they sure as hell weren’t running. They were fighting.
Charlotte screamed from the living room below, the sound high and sharp, cutting through the air like glass.
Ryker didn’t take his eyes off the stairwell as he shouted, “Charlotte, get out! Run up the street.Now!”
He heard her stumble, then the front door crashed open as she bolted outside.
Another shot rang out, splintering the wooden banister just above Emma’s head. Wood shards rained down the stairs. Rykercursed and ducked back behind the wall, the heat from the shot still clinging to the air.
Everything in him tensed.
He hated this setup. Hated that Emma was on the other side of the stairs, crouched behind a slim sliver of cover. They were divided, cut in half, and if someone came through the front door or the back while they were pinned here, it would be an ambush waiting to happen.
More shots cracked through the hallway, echoing like hammer strikes in a drum. Ryker flattened against the wall, heart pounding, the wood beside his shoulder splintering from another hit.
From outside, he heard the low growl of a cruiser pulling up, backup.
His stomach dropped.
He didn’t know who was in that unit. Hayes? Jesse? Someone else? Whoever it was, they were walking into a damn hornet’s nest if they charged the house blind.
He yanked his phone from his pocket, fingers flying across the screen.
Shots fired inside. Armed suspect upstairs. Hold perimeter. Do not approach.
He hit send, the message firing off to dispatch.
