I hated to say it, but I did. Defiance.
Caspar’s silence was a heavy weight between us. Then he disappeared, leaving me to track Charlie and Jessa. I was hidden behind the heavy scrub that thrived in this weather. Brown, thorned, twisted and heavy, it was both dangerous and yet provided excellent cover. I bent on one knee and pulled my weapon. Wished I had my rifle but there wasn’t time to grab it.
You don’t have to rely on your weapon—you are one. You know the right places to hit.
Bish’s voice, in my ear, the way it always was when we were on the hill, reconning, and he was my spotter. This was one of the most important shots of my life and I’d have to take it alone.
The one thing I wouldn’t do was take it in secret. If I was going to kill Charlie, I’d do it face-to-face, so he’d know. I watched a few seconds longer as he dragged her with a hand around her neck and a gun to her head. He was darting looks left and right. All around him, Defiance members were moving aside, clearing a path.
I couldn’t look anywhere but at Jessa. And once Charlie was firmly in the clearing, I stepped out from the cover. He froze and then pushed the gun harder against her, making her cry out in surprise and pain. I clenched my hand around my gun, then released the grip to the looser one I’d need in order to take my shot.
“Get out of my way,” Charlie snarled. I shook my head as I took a step forward and he took a step back. I kept moving forward, determined while he continued his retreat, holding tight to Jessa as he did.
We were the only ones moving.
“I’ll shoot her if you come closer,” Charlie threatened.
No, you won’t.
“I don’t know what you’re saying, you fucking freak.”
“Mathias says you’re a weak-willed asshole,” Jessa told Charlie, her voice little more than a gasp. “He knows you can’t shoot me.”
“Sure I can, honey. Then I’ll blame Defiance. Either way, you and your boyfriend are screwed,” Charlie said.
I pulled my weapon, ready to take the shot, but Charlie started to fall before I could. That was the start of the confusion, and I saw the look of panic on Jessa’s face as Charlie jerked against her from the force of the shots. As his knees buckled, she pushed him away and I got off a shot to his hand. He still got off his shot, but not where he’d intended, because he’d been trying to kill her.
As it was, blood blossomed against her shirt. He’d hit her, but she was running from him and toward me and more shots fired. But they weren’t mine.
Charlie finally collapsed, facedown on the ground at the same time Jessa threw herself into my arms. I tightened my arms around her, my hand covering where the bullet had hit her. As I felt her blood on my hands, I looked over her shoulder to see Hammer, standing there, weapon now at his side. The look in his eyes was something I never wanted to see again. This hadn’t been so much about Jessa as it was avenging the woman he hadn’t been able to when she’d been hurt.
I stared at him until he caught my gaze and only then did his expression change. He gave a nod in my direction and went to Charlie. I picked Jessa up gingerly and walked her to the infirmary, ignoring the confusion that ensued once everyone started talking again. There were a few hands that touched my shoulder, offers of help, but I kept moving as Jessa trembled in my arms.
Someone must’ve gotten to the doctors faster, because the doc named Fred was waiting for me, along with Aimee. They had a stretcher and I lowered her onto it, but she wouldn’t unwrap her arms from around my neck. We all pushed the stretcher inside that way, and Aimee spoke to Jessa calmly, explaining that the doctor was going to give her something for the pain. That I’d be there when she woke up, and Jessa peered up to look at me.
I will, I mouthed.
She nodded and finally let go, but I held her hand until she fell asleep.
“You can stay,” Fred told me. He’d learned, after trying to kick countless people out of situations like this, that no one around here shied away from blood. He’d cut her shirt off, put a sterile sheet over her and eyed the wound. I knew the bullet hadn’t exited, and I also knew that it was sometimes better to leave it in than risk more injury taking it out.
I hated that she’d have a mark on her, never mind a bullet from Charlie inside of her indefinitely. But I wanted Fred to do what was best for her and I stayed the entire time, until they’d irrigated the wound, determined it was best to leave the bullet in. She had IV lines running with antibiotics and pain meds, and finally, Fred told me she was out of the woods.
“I gave her a good dose of pain meds. She’ll sleep for a while,” Fred told me. “Might want to get comfortable.”
The only comfortable place I had was in her arms, but I refrained from telling Fred that. Instead, I pulled up an old recliner they kept by the bedside, close enough so that I could reach out and grab her hand—or her, if I needed to.
I also kept my weapon out, and a couple of hours later, I woke up blinking and grabbing for my gun when Hammer said, “Just me, Mathias. Do no harm.”
I looked up at the big blond guy standing in the middle of the room with his arms up and muttered, Shit, silently.
“I get it, man. It’s one of the reasons Aimee won’t sleep in the same bed with me yet.”
Ah jeez. I signed, Sorry, and even though Hammer didn’t know many signs, he got the gist of that.
“Yeah, me too.”
Thank you, I signed, pointed to Jessa.
“I know you’d have killed him. But he was still her husband. She might’ve hated you for it at some point, no matter how much she didn’t love him,” Hammer explained. “I didn’t want that for you.”
Aimee doesn’t hate you for not being there. I had to write that on the back of the pad of paper by Jessa’s bedside. Hammer took the paper off the pad and held it, so hard it crumpled a bit in his grip. It was like he wanted to remember those words, or he wanted desperately to believe them and couldn’t yet. He shoved it in his pocket and then nodded in my direction.
“I’m glad she’s all right, man.”
I shook his hand. Mouthed, I owe you, and that he understood.
“Good. Then you’ll have to stick around,” was the last thing he said before he left the room.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Light comes out of black
Jessa
I woke in a haze, hearing a male voice. For a long moment, I had no idea where I was and panic shot through me. I tried to sit up and hands were on my shoulders. When I felt the mouth against my cheek, I stopped resisting, because I knew it was Mathias. I recognized his mouth moving against me.
He was saying, I love you, the way he’d said it over and over against my cheek after I’d been shot. And I signed it, the way I had as he’d carried me, but just in case he hadn’t seen it then, I made sure he watched me sign it now.
Good, he mouthed.
“Yes, good,” I told him. I was so tired, but I didn’t want to go back to sleep. “What happens now? Because I know they’re nice here, but I’m a little tired of ending up in the infirmary, for any reason.”
I’ll make sure of it, he mouthed.
“You know, you’re going to have to teach me more signs,” I said gently. I didn’t want to rub in the fact that Bishop wasn’t here to translate, but then again, it’s not like it wasn’t on Mathias’s mind constantly.
I know, he mouthed, and then he reached back and picked up a pair of headphones. Rest.