Run - Blake Crouch [101]
“How far are we?” Naomi asked.
“Two, three miles.”
“You really think there are camps across the border?”
“Won’t know until we get there.”
“What if there aren’t? What if it’s no different on the other side? It’s just an imaginary line, right?”
“Na, somewhere north of here, we’ll come to a place where we don’t have to run anymore, and we’ll drive or walk or crawl until we get there.”
She moved closer, her head against his shoulder.
“We’re almost there, aren’t we, Daddy?”
Behind them, something chinked against the side of the Jeep.
“Almost, angel.”
A shot rang out across the prairie. Long ways off.
Jack sat up.
The echo going on and on.
“Was that a gun?” Naomi asked.
“I think so.”
Jack glanced back at the Jeep. Because of its dark color, he didn’t notice the bullet hole right away, but he did see that Dee was awake, sitting up now.
“Mom’s up,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
He got onto his feet and walked to Dee’s door. The reflection of the sky in the windowglass—a gray sheet of clouds.
He pulled open the front passenger door.
Dee was pale, and she was looking up at him with a brand of fear in her eyes he’d only seen twice before. Both times, she’d been in the throes of childbirth. The look had been pure desperation, like she’d committed herself to something she couldn’t bear to finish.
He still didn’t understand.
“Baby, what’s wrong?”
“It hurts, Jack.”
She looked down, and he did, too.
Her seat was full of bright red arterial blood and she was squeezing her right leg.
“Oh, Jesus,” Jack said.
Naomi said, “What’s wrong.”
Jack yelled, “You and your brother run to the other side of the car.”
“Why? What—”
“Just do what I fucking tell you.”
Something struck the rear passenger door a foot away from Jack. He slid his right arm under Dee’s legs and lifted her out of the seat.
The report broke out as he carried her around the smoking grille, Dee moaning when he set her down in the grass on the other side of the Jeep.
“What happened?” Naomi said.
“She’s shot.”
“Oh God.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
Cole started to cry.
Jack’s hand was slicked with warm blood that was beading and dripping off the ends of his fingers.
A round zipped through one of the back windows.
“Na, Cole, get behind the tires and lay flat against the grass.” He looked at his wife. “You have to tell me what to do.”
“I don’t know if it nicked the femoral artery or what, but you’ve got to stop the bleeding right now or I’m going to go into hypovolemic shock and die.”
“How do I do that?”
“Wrap something around my leg.”
“Like a shirt?”
“Yes. Please hurry.”
Jack ripped open his button-up shirt and tore his arms out of the sleeves as another bullet hit the Jeep.
Dee cried out when he lifted her leg and ran one of the sleeves underneath it.
“How tight?” he asked, tying the first knot.
“Cut my circulation off.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He slid the loop to the top of her thigh and bore down on the knot, then put his foot on it while he cinched it down again. He kept watching Dee’s right hand which she’d been pressing into the wound, trying to stop the blood that pulsed between her fingers with every heartbeat.
“Is it working?” he asked.
“I can’t tell.” She blinked several times, staring into the fading sky. He thought her eyes looked glassy. “Yeah,” she said finally. “It’s stopping.”
“Can I leave you for a minute?”
“Why?”
“I need to see if anyone’s coming.”
He opened the rear passenger door—no safe way to do this.
Moved quickly into the backseat and reached into the cargo area, grabbing two AR-15s and a pair of binoculars, then diving back outside as another gunshot resounded across the prairie.
Jack crawled around to the back of the Jeep, lay with his chest heaving against the ground and brought the binoculars to his eyes.
Pulled the prairie into focus.
Distant grass, waving in the wind. A backdrop of clouds going dark as night fell. A jackrabbit standing on