Lisa Jackson - Born To Die

Oh, dear God. . let her still be alive.

“Kacey,” he choked out. “God, please… Kacey.” Again he heard a noise behind him. The wounded footsteps of the assassin. Was the bastard going to kill him now?

He thought he saw her move. Oh, sweet Jesus! Yes, there it was again: one foot was twitching. He crawled closer, to where he could see the rest of her body, and noticed a terrifying, spreading darkness staining the snow beneath her. “Why?” he whispered, fury tearing through him. Why had she come to his rescue?

“Too late, lover boy,” the big man behind him was saying, breathing hard. Far in the distance — too far — sirens shrieked over the howl of the wind.

Exhausted, breathing hard, Trace looked over his shoulder and saw a huge, shadowy shape fill the doorway. The rifle was at his shoulder, night goggles covering his eyes, but he leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. Trace saw dark splotches begin to color the snow beneath the man’s left arm. So the pitchfork had done some damage.

“You’re dead now, you son of a bitch,” the killer warned, his voice a watery hiss.

That’s when Trace noticed the gun in the snow.

Lying at the end of Kacey’s fingers, its barrel pointed away from her.

Still holding the shovel as protection, Trace lunged, one arm outstretched. He missed, his fingers brushing the gun’s muzzle and causing it to spin, burying deep in the snow.

The killer laughed, a gurgling, demonic sound that echoed through the night. “Nice try, bastard!”

Click!

Trace sprang.

Swinging his shovel, the blade knifing through the air, he landed in a drift a foot from the gun. Snatching up the weapon, he nearly passed out in the process. All he could think about was Kacey. Sweet Kacey. How she’d tried to save him and died in the process.

“Say your prayers, cowboy,” the killer ordered, hobbling closer, his rifle aimed straight at Trace. “You’re gonna get to join your girlfriend.”

A tremendous growl erupted from inside the stable.

The killer glanced back, momentarily distracted.

Both dogs catapulted through the open doorway.

Snarling, ears flattened, heads low, fangs showing, they split: one turning left, the other right. They determinedly circled the killer, and snapped and lunged, like hungry wolves ready to bring down prey.

“Shit.” The killer didn’t hesitate, just took aim at the bigger dog.

Bonzi!

“No!” Trace yelled, trying to stagger to his feet and falling backward.

Bonzi leapt, exposing his big chest and belly, white teeth flashing against his dark lips.

BLAM!

The killer jerked. Squealed. His rifle spun out of his hands.

BLAM!

Again the assassin’s torso bucked, his arms flying wildly.

He dropped, falling onto his knees. Blood bloomed over the front of his jacket. His head lolled and he stared at the growing stain as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Where is he?” a woman demanded, her voice stern in the night.

Trace, dizzier still, looked over his shoulder. What? Who was. . She drew closer, a rifle to her shoulder, the sight of her gun— his rifle — centered on the wounded man.

Kacey?

But—?

He looked down at the woman he loved — Kacey — lying pale as the snow that was beginning to cover her as the sirens shrilled more loudly.

“Where the hell is Eli, Cameron?” this new Kacey demanded, holding her rifle on the flailing, injured man. Trace thought he might be hallucinating. Two of them. .

The newcomer— Kacey? — was still advancing.

But it can’t be. . She reached the wounded man and kicked his weapon away from him. The would-be assassin let out a last, gasping groan that rattled, wet in his lungs, then didn’t move.

Pulling her gaze from his masked face, she turned, finding Trace’s eyes before she saw the blood flowing from his thigh, the snow around him discolored and dark from his blood.

“Oh, Jesus! Trace!”

Woozy now, the blackness pulling him under, he watched, sliding onto the ground, as she ran to him as if in slow motion. Kicking up snow, the rifle in one hand, a flashlight bobbing in her pocket, she crossed the short, powdery distance and fell to her knees at his side. “Oh, God, you’re hurt!”

“Kacey,” he whispered and reached for her, wanting to wrap his arms around her, to hold her close, feel her warmth, smell her hair… But his eyes wouldn’t stay open and he was spinning, further and further away…

“Wait. . Let me see how badly you’re injured…. Oh, dear Christ, Trace. .” He heard her sharp intake of breath and saw that she was focused on the dead woman lying next to him. “Oh, my God. Who?” she whispered, then clearing her throat, she moved close to the woman who was nearly her twin. Leaning over the body, she searched for a pulse at the woman’s neck, pushed her ear next to her nostrils. “Gone,” she whispered, then dragged her gaze from the body that was so like her own. Touching him on the shoulder, she said gently, “We have to get you to a hospital!”

He was drifting away, his eyelids leaden, “But Eli?” he forced out. “Where’s Eli?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly, holding him close. He drank in the smell of her, felt her warm, wet cheek against his own as the wintry world, like one of those snow globes turned upside down, seemed to spin around him.

“No,” he said fighting to stay conscious. He had to find his son. Had to!

“We’ll find him,” she promised over the shattering wail of sirens. “You just hang in. You hear me? Trace? Trace! You just stay with me. .”

But he didn’t. One second he heard her voice, the next he was floating away, wondering how this woman he loved could be two, one dead, one alive.

He sank into himself, heard voices… men and women. . couldn’t respond.

Kacey’s alive. . she’s alive. . but Eli. .

He loved them both. .

“Don’t you leave me, Trace O’Halleran!” she yelled at him from somewhere far off. “Damn it, Trace, it took me thirty-five years to find you and you’d better not die on me. Do you hear me? Stay with me.” Her voice broke. “Come on, Trace… come on. I love you. Oh, Holy Christ, I love you!”

I love you, too. .

She was losing him!

Right here, right now, Trace O’Halleran was dying in her arms.

And the woman lying next to him, dead in the snow, she was now certain must be Leanna, his ex-wife, probably another one of Gerald Johnson’s sperm bank children, and mother to Eli.

“Hang in there,” she ordered Trace as the sound of sirens blasted around them and lights bobbed up the driveway.

She didn’t look over her shoulder but prayed the EMTs had the equipment to save him. He’d lost a lot of blood, but she wasn’t going to let him die. Not on her watch. Quickly, she stripped him of his pants, yanking out the flashlight from her pocket to get a good look at the bullet wound in his thigh. Blood was pumping out of the hole in his flesh and she suspected his femoral artery had been hit. She crossed one hand over the other and pressed them to the wound just as she heard, “Hey! Over here!” from a deep voice yelling near the house. Then footsteps and heaving breaths and conversation swirled around her in the snow. “We’ll take over, ma’am,” someone said and she felt a man’s hand on her shoulder.

“But I’m a doctor—”

“Holy Christ, there’s another one!” He started bending over Leanna’s body.

“She’s dead.”

“Hey! Over here!” A woman shouted from the vicinity of Cam’s corpse. “Holy shit, what happened here. Looks like goddamned Armageddon!”