Run - Blake Crouch [68]
“Why don’t you leave us alone? We aren’t doing anything to you.”
Max looked up at Dee with unfiltered hatred. “Get back in the car.”
“No.”
“Get in the car or I’ll shoot you and your children in the knees and put you in there myself. You can roast healthy or you can roast with shattered kneecaps. It makes not a fucking bit of difference to me so long as I get to watch you burn.”
Dee said, “What did we ever…”
Max aimed the AR-15 at her left knee.
Split second choice. Reach for the Glock or speak one last time to your children.
“I love you, Naomi. I love you, Cole. No one and nothing can take that away.”
“I can,” Max said.
She drew her kids into her, Naomi quaking and crying, but she didn’t allow herself to avert her eyes from the man who was going to murder them. She stared Max down, wondering would he think of them years from now on his deathbed in a moment of clarity and regret, wondering if her eyes would always haunt him, but she doubted it as he returned the stare, a malevolent smile curling his lips, Dee’s heart in her throat.
The slug mostly decapitated Bill.
A shotgun thundered out of the woods, Max spinning toward the gunfire, several of his men falling, flashlights hitting the ground, muzzleflames spitting out of the machine guns. Dee jerked Naomi and Cole to the ground and dragged them crawling away from the Jeep toward the other side of the road, where they rolled into a ditch.
Smell of moist, rich earth. The gunfire intensifying, bullets striking the trees behind them, Dee pushing Naomi’s and Cole’s heads down, pulling Cole into her chest and speaking into his ear over the shattering noise of the firefight, “I’m right here, I’ve got you.” She couldn’t hear him crying but she could feel his body shaking.
After what seemed ages, the flurry of gunfire dissipated.
They lay in the dark, Dee staring into a wall of dirt.
Someone yelled, “Fall back.”
Footsteps crunched through the leaves—someone retreating into the woods.
A man groaned nearby, begging for help.
Three reports from a handgun.
An AR-15 answered.
The exchange went on for several minutes, and it struck Dee that the gunfire sounded like the communication of terrible birds. She was tempted to climb out of the ditch and have a look, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.
After a while, the shooting stopped altogether.
Footfalls echoed through the forest.
The man nearby pleaded to God.
Someone said, “Jim, right there.”
A machine gun ripped up the silence.
Four shotgun blasts roared back.
Footsteps moved closer to the ditch.
“Sure we got all of them?”
A woman answered, “Yeah, there were nine. I count one, two, three, four, five six…” She laughed. “Where do you think you’re going?” A single handgun report rang out. “And this one’s still hanging in there, too.”
“No, Liz.”
“Why?”
“Please, it hurts so bad.”
“You’re breaking my fucking heart. Why can’t I end this piece of shit?”
“Mathias wanted one alive.”
“’Kay. Driver’s dead, but I saw three others get out. Woman, couple of kids.”
“They crawled into the woods when the shooting started. May be gone by now.”
Footsteps moved across the dirt road and stopped at the edge of the ditch.
The woman yelled into the woods, “Woman and two kids? You out there? We’re the good guys, and the bad guys are dead or wishing they were.”
Dee didn’t move, not wanting to startle anyone, just said softly, “We’re right here. Underneath you.”
The woman knelt down. “Anyone hurt?”
“No.” Dee pushed herself out of the dirt and sat up. “Thank you. They were going to burn us.”
“You’re safe now.” The woman reached out, took hold of Dee’s hand. “I’m Liz.”
“Dee.”
“And who’s this?”
“This is Cole, and this is Naomi.”
“Hi, Cole. Hi, Naomi.”
Liz wore a dark, one-piece jumpsuit. Long black hair drawn back into a ponytail under her black beanie. Even squatting down, Dee could see that she was tall and fit, possessing a hard, wiry strength evident in the angular tapering of her jawline.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Liz said. “You want to come with us?”
“Where to?”
Liz