She quickly sent a message to Garret, telling him that two vehicles full of company had arrived. When she didn’t get an answer back, she realized that chances were, he was either engaged or out cold. She slipped from the vehicle and into the front seat awkwardly and looked to see if another handgun was in the glove box. And, indeed, there was.
She grabbed it, took a deep breath, and slipped out of the vehicle once more. She crept forward, trying to stay well hidden from everything. And, sure enough, there was Charles and Garret, with guns pointed at them. No sign of Kano, but two men were down on the ground, either dead or unconscious, and three others were busy talking. One gunman reached out and smacked Garret hard in the face. Another poked at Charles, calling him an old man.
“You really thought you would pull one over on us, old man?”
At that, Charles just stood there and smiled.
“Look at that smile on him,” the other guy said. “Almost like he has some sort of secret weapon.”
“Outside of the girl, nobody was with him, when I saw them.”
“And are you sure it was a girl?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I am.”
“Well, she could be around here somewhere too.”
“Better go check the vehicle,” he said. “Make sure you take her out. Just a simple pop in the head. No theatrics. Just get the job done.”
The one guy took off at a fast pace toward her car. She stared, wondering what she was supposed to do. She knew that this guy couldn’t be allowed to carry on because, in that case, he would come back and tell them she wasn’t there. She turned, lined up her shot, and, as he bent down to check inside the back seat of the car, she fired one shot at him. And down he went. She spun back around to the other men to see the two guys laughing.
Garret looked sick.
One of the gunmen said, “Oh, you cared about that one, did you?” He shook his head. “Too damn bad, she’s gone now,” he said, chuckling. “She wasn’t any good anyway. You know that.”
Nothing in Garret’s face gave away his emotions, except for the clenching of his fists. She could see that easily. She wondered what to do with her next advantage because, if anybody came looking for the guy she’d shot, it would be all over again. She had to make the most of the few moments that she actually had available.
One of the men said, “Let’s move these two into the vehicle,” he said. “Anybody could come along, and we don’t have time for this.”
“I suggest we just pop ’em right here,” the other said, and he lifted the gun to shoot Charles first. She didn’t even think about it and raised her gun and fired once more. The gunman dropped dead.
Garret wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but somebody was on his side, and he was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was on the second gunman before the guy had a chance to even register that his partner was dead. By the time he had the man subdued, he turned and Charles was at his side, but there was no sign of Kano. Then, hearing footsteps, he suddenly looked up to see Kano, standing there with Astra.
She stared at Garret in shock, still holding the handgun. Charles looked at her, smiled, and said, “I see that, like your sister, you can’t follow orders.”
“And I think this time,” she said, “it was the right thing to do. He came to kill me,” she murmured.
“And what did you do?” Garret asked softly.
“I was actually already over here, but I realized that, once he found me missing, it would be all over.”
“So you shot him?”
“I did. I just don’t know if he’s dead or not.”
With that, Kano took off to check. She walked slowly forward. “I’ve never killed a man before,” she said, feeling her face turning gray.
Garret walked over, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close. “I, for one, am very thankful that you did,” he said. “We were goners.”
She nodded. “He would have shot Charles,” she said, turning to look at Charles. “Why would he do that?”
“Because that’s where the maximum pain would be for Garret. They work it out so they take out the weakest ones and make everybody suffer that much longer,” Charles murmured.
“Assholes,” she said, with feeling.
“It’s part of the game.”
“There’s no game to this,” she said. “It’s deadly serious.”
“That it is,” Charles said.
Kano came back, and the look on his face made her swallow. Garret reached up, hugged her close, and said, “Good,” he said. “The other guy’s dead.”
“I didn’t think I shot him that badly,” she said.
“Maybe not,” Kano said, “but you hit an artery, and he bled out.”
She took a slow deep breath. “So do I go to jail now?”
Her voice was so small and tinny that Garret realized she really had no idea. He wrapped her up even closer and said, “No, absolutely not.”
“I killed two men,” she said, staring at him, her eyes like huge orbs in the darkness.
“You did it to save our lives.” At that, Charles was already on the phone. Garret nodded toward Charles and said, “Charles’s taking care of it.”
“Taking care of what?” she said.
“There won’t be any mention of this anywhere,” he said. “It’ll all go quietly away. I highly doubt these were any exemplary citizens for anybody to be concerned about,” he said. “So you’ll be fine.”
Chapter 11
They and Jonas were at Charles’s place, and Charles was busy pacing, as Jonas reamed him out. It was all she could do to stand here and to listen. And, when Jonas finally came to a stop, Charles turned and looked at Jonas and then spoke in a calm voice.
“Are you quite finished, young man?” Jonas just glared at him and then sagged in place and nodded. “Good,” Charles said. “That, sir, is your free one. See that you never speak to me like that again …”
Jonas opened his mouth, took one look at Charles, and slammed his mouth shut, then nodded. “Fine,” Jonas said, “but this is a shitstorm.”
“Yes, it is, but it’s not of our making,” Garret reminded him. “And we did hand you two live ones.”
“It’s never your fault,” he roared at Garret. “You guys just walk into my country, and all this shit happens. And those two guys know nothing. They will get minor charges but have no clue what’s going on.”
“You might want to remember that we walked into the country because you guys hadn’t found a missing person,” Garret snapped right back.
“And now we have two missing people again? The sister, right?” He turned and looked at her. Astra nodded and chose to stay silent. “This is just too unbelievable. I thought you guys were good at this.”
“We weren’t taking into account the fact that the sister, Amy, might actually listen to somebody in her world to get out of here. She was safe here, if she would have just stayed put.”
“Right,” Jonas said. “As if that’ll happen.”
Astra had to admit that she was surprised at Amy’s behavior too. “I don’t think she thought this would be the outcome.”