Alistair McIntyre - Shallow Creek

A couple of shots close together slammed into the bed on the other side of the truck. Brendan counted to three and then stood up carefully, hunching his back to keep the bed as protection. Now bent at the waist, Brendan leaned to the back of the truck, put one hand on the large bumper for support, and stole a peek around the edge of the tailgate.

The red truck had flipped onto its side. Grant, apparently none the worse for wear, must’ve been using the center console as a step, because the top of his torso was extended out through the now upwards-facing passenger side window. Spotting Brendan, Grant squeezed off another round, barely missing Brendan’s retreating skull.

“You always sucked at shooting,” Brendan yelled as soon as he resumed sitting with his back to the truck wheel.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Another shot plowed into the truck somewhere, getting nothing more than a muffled thunk for its efforts. However many bullets Grant had in that pistol, Brendan was sure the guy was close to empty now. It was just a matter of time before the idiot wasted all of them. He did have a bad temper after all.

“Shame you screwed this all up, bro,” Brendan called back. “Michelle’s a real nice lady.”

“I told you to shut up!”

No bullets that time. Brendan guessed he had to try harder then.

“Great in the sack, too. Hard to find a chick her age who’ll do all those nasty things.”

Brendan only knew his brother was screaming at the top of his lungs because of the inhuman roar resonating after all the remaining bullets were expended into the side of Michelle’s truck. The telltale click of the empty magazine needed no deciphering.

He popped up over the top of the truck bed, smoothly leveled his sights on his brother’s head, and—

Missed.

Grant’s head dipped suddenly into the truck, his arms flailing up in the air, right as Brendan’s pistol kicked up with the release of its payload. Brendan never missed a target once, never mind twice. Fueled by this frustration, Brendan banged the gun against Michelle’s truck, gouging the paint. He paid no attention to this as he sprinted to Grant’s upturned pickup. With a simple jump he pulled his body up onto the outside of the truck bed, crying out when his wounded arm felt like someone had just sawed it off with a butter knife.

Once the adrenaline overpowered the pain, Brendan crawled forward, now hearing the sounds of a struggle emanating from inside the passenger cabin below him. The view that greeted him when he peered in through the shattered window got him back on his feet, pointing his pistol downward.

Special Agent Casey Spee, wrists bound in duct tape, legs still in the backseat, had both hands on Grant’s face, gouging his eyeballs. Grant gripped her wrists with one hand, but his other arm was twisted under him, out of view. With the way the two wrestled back and forth, Brendan had no shot. He tracked his brother’s movements closely, but Spee was attempting to crawl out of the backseat to get on top of Grant.

At Brendan’s appearance, Spee looked up. Grant’s body twisted suddenly. A glint of metal darted across the dark space. Before Brendan could pull the trigger, Grant, with blood leaking out of one eye, grinned up at him with Spee’s hair firmly in one hand and a knife in the other.

She punched at him violently, but one hard yank on her hair twisted her head around. Her shoulders were forced to follow, pinning her arms uselessly under her. A thin line of red tracked across her throat where the tip of Grant’s knife had barely broken the skin as she rotated.

Now finally Spee held still, and Brendan waited furiously for his brother’s next move.

Chapter 50

“You’re really shitty at this game.” Blood mixed in with spittle as Grant spat out each syllable.

Brendan didn’t budge an inch. “Let her go.”

Grant laughed merrily. “If you shoot me, my hand might just slip and cut a new mouth for Ms. Spee.” He lightly dragged the knife over her throat. “Right across here.”

“Shoot him, Brendan,” Spee said awkwardly. Speaking with a sharp object poking at her neck didn’t seem that comfortable.

“Yeah, shoot me, Brendan,” Grant imitated before cracking himself up again.

He couldn’t live with Spee’s life on his conscience, Brendan knew that much. As long as he had his gun, there was a chance he’d find a shot.

“How about you put that gun on the door there and get the hell off my truck?”

Shit.

“I can’t do that.”

The knife penetrated a quarter inch against Spee’s neck. She screamed as her skin bowed under the pressure and then ripped open, but she kept the rest of her body motionless.

“Oh, I think you can.” Grant smiled that vile fucking smirk that Brendan wanted to eradicate.

Without a word, Brendan pulled the gun out of view, ejected the chambered round, and released the magazine onto the ground. No way in hell was this psycho getting his hands on a loaded weapon. He couldn’t tell if Grant had noticed or heard the mechanisms in action, so he just carefully placed the gun against the door panel.

“Good. Now get down and back up a ways, like ten yards or so.”

Brendan ground his teeth, but obeyed the command. He lowered himself off the truck and retreated to the desired distance. His brother’s hand appeared, swatting around the precariously balanced gun. Unable to gain a purchase on it, Grant inadvertently swiped the pistol off the door and down the front of the hood, away from Brendan.

After much shuffling from inside the cab, and many different iterations of the word bitch , Spee’s head appeared through the window. Her face jerked up to the sky and she shrieked horrifically as Grant used her hair as a handhold to work his way out of the cab from behind her. Once he cleared the opening, Grant wrenched Spee up by the hair. She struggled to right herself, hindered greatly by her bound hands.

As she brought a knee up onto the door of the overturned pickup, she slipped and fell free from Grant’s grip, spilling onto the dirt. Brendan raced forward, but Grant dived off the truck and dragged Spee to her unsteady feet.

“Back up!” Grant’s knife graced Spee’s neck once more.

Brendan gave up a few paces, but now he was close enough to clearly see the panic on his brother’s face. The fading light revealed a frantic picture while distant sirens danced through the trees.

“Throw your phone down,” Grant commanded, favoring one leg.

Brendan pulled his cell from his pocket and did so, watching Grant adjust his grip to pull Spee’s face up and close to his own. The knife needled at her exposed neck.

“You don’t have to do this, man. It’s not too late.”

“Shut up. You think I wanted this? You think this was in the damn plan?”

Brendan said nothing.

“This is all Taryn’s fault.” Grant’s voice cracked, but his knife stayed steady. “I did this for her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m fucking serious! Didn’t you see her? Her messed-up teeth? The face of a fifty-year-old? That was the price for helping our sister.”

“How the hell did you help her, you psycho?”

Grant grimaced at the insult and pulled tighter on Spee’s face. “You should’ve seen what she was into before, man. Screwing guys all over, begging for food, stripping. I saved her from all of that. I did that!”

“Yeah, she’s a picture of health now.” Brendan shuffled forward an inch.

Grant’s eyes took on a glassy sheen. “She almost died after she took some of that shit the Mexicans cooked up. I don’t know what they cut it with, but I didn’t care. I tried to help her then. I tried to get her clean, but she was using again in a week. So you know what I did? I learned how to make the stuff right, how to get the mix so that nothing’s left over after the reactions. But I sucked at it, so I brought in Serge.”