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Shivering on a thin mattress, hungry, and held captive in a room full of drugged women had given Zora plenty of time for reflection. Being in this predicament was like an alternative branch of her life—one that had skewed off course when she’d made the decision to move to South Dakota. It had been an impulsive move. If she’d stayed in New York she’d be safe, lonely but safe.
Was she meant to be in South Dakota to save John’s daughter? She gave herself a mental shake. Now she was beginning to sound like the shaman, Joseph Bearkiller.
Loving John Iron Hawk had not been a fluke. It felt too real. So why had she planned to fly back to New York?
She tucked her bare feet under her body. What would happen to her and Laurie if John didn’t come? Nothing good.
Who were these people who held her and Laurie and these five other women?
She’d been so wrapped up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard the door open. Trudged up from her nightmare, the guy from the trailer stood in the opening, his gaze locked on her. He’d caught her red-handed. She couldn’t even pretend to be asleep.
He walked toward her end of the room, a swagger to his step. Smiling, he lifted her mattress, stared at the food, and let the mattress plop to the floor.
“So, you’re pretty quick. I told the doc someone was going to catch on.” He stood and reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a knife. Dropping onto his haunches at the end of her mattress, he pressed on the knife handle, and the blade clicked opened.
Zora flinched.
He smiled. “Now what are we going to do with you?” He started cleaning under his nails with the wicked-looking blade.
Zora couldn’t speak if she wanted to. She was hypnotized by the shining, lethal knife.
“Your boyfriend came to see us today. Walked right in calm as you pleased.”
“John?” Her heart fluttered so hard it left her breathless.
He smiled but his eyes remained flat. “Yeah, John. The Indian.”
He said the name with a sneer.
Zora opened her mouth to tell him that John was twice, no, six times the man he was. But the movement of the knife kept her lips glued shut.
“He was looking for his daughter and fiancée. I assume you’re the fiancée?” He looked her up and down as though assessing why John would come looking for her.
Zora nodded.
“Now the daughter—” He paused. “How do the Italians say it?” He brought fingers up to his mouth and made a loud kissing noise. “She’s a looker. I’d have had a piece of that if you hadn’t come around pounding on Danny’s door.”
The thought of this thug touching Laurie made Zora want to puke.
“Where was Danny?” Her throat was so dry she could barely get the words past her lips.
“Dead.” He mimicked a throat slicing gesture with his blade.
The gesture was so theatrical Zora almost laughed. Almost. In an act of self-preservation, she swallowed the sound. She hadn’t liked Danny—thought he was a sleazy spoiled kid—but she’d never wanted him dead.
“Why?”
“You mean why did I kill him?”
She nodded.
“Because the little punk was messing up six ways to Sunday. Took a girl out of the big House without permission—not that Mr. Stojanovic would have given him permission—and took her back to the reservation. Don’t know what his plan was. Don’t care. I had to kill her to get control of the situation. I was tired of cleaning up behind the punk. The boss told me to take care of him, and I took care of him. End of story.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Nothing.” He folded the blade against his thigh. The steel retracted, and he pocketed the knife. “Now John’s daughter is prime beef. We got a buyer for her.”
“Buyer?”
“The guy’s got a thing for Indian girls. She’ll be his plaything for a couple of months, then he’ll probably sell her to one of the brothels.”
“Brothels?” Zora had no food in her stomach, but she still felt the urge to throw up. She swallowed and took deep breaths. Only then could she think straight. “Where is she?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re in here. She’s out there.” He pointed in the general direction of outside.
“Please. Her father will pay you.”
The guy laughed. “Iron Hawk doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“He could get more money. He knows people with money.” That was a lie. The people around John were poorer than refugees. They could barely afford to pay his salary—forget raises.
“Doesn’t matter. She and the other one are flying out tomorrow morning.”
“Flying out?” Zora searched his face for a lie. “Going where?”
He stood, then lifted his hand, palm up. “Shit if I know. Only the boss knows, so don’t think you can pump me for information.”
Zora followed him to the edge of the mattress. “What time?”
He’d started to walk away but paused. “Now, why do you want to know? You’re a prisoner in this place until we decide what to do with you. Hell, I might suggest Stojanovic sell you to a brothel in the same city with the girl. Would you like that?”
He didn’t wait for her answer but strolled toward the door.
“What time tomorrow?”
He laughed. “Why? You planning to rescue her?”
Yes.
“What would your mother think of what you’re doing to women?” she shouted. Her own mother had very little respect for her gender. She’d trotted over many of her female colleagues to get what she wanted—power.
He stomped back inside the room. “My mother was a whore.”
Zora shrank back against the wall. She hadn’t expected to get a rise out of him. The zing had been wild and desperate.
Just before he walked through the door, he said, “She leaves at seven tomorrow morning.”
When he closed the door silently behind him, Zora’s bravado broke. She sobbed into her hands. Big, racking sobs that hurt her chest and tore at her throat. How in the world could she save Laurie? She couldn’t figure out a way to get herself out of this hellhole.
∞
John had a welcoming committee when he exited the elevator. If he had any doubt this was the floor Stojanovic’s office was located on, the four semiautomatics pointed at his head when the elevator doors opened confirmed his guess.
He lifted his hands over his head and hoped they didn’t have orders to shoot on sight.
“I just need to speak with Mr. Stojanovic, then I’ll go peacefully.”
The guys, all thick-necked as professional football players, held their ground.
“Mr. Iron Hawk. You don’t know how to let matters rest do you?” Stojanovic’s voice came from behind the guards.
“Not when it concerns my daughter and girlfriend.”
“A commendable man. Search him and then let him through.”
He was patted down and both guns removed from his waistband. Trailing behind Stojanovic and followed by his goons, John entered the sacred halls of the Serb’s office.
The large desk and chair were dwarfed by the size of the space.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Iron Hawk,” Stojanovic asked as he stepped behind his desk, putting space between himself and John. “I thought we’d said everything there was to say back at The Pink.”
“I haven’t found my family, so I guess we have more to say.”
“And why do you think I can help you?”
John tossed Zora’s ankle bracelet on the desk. Stojanovic picked it up, studied it, and then tossed it back on the desk.
He lifted his shoulders in a So? gesture.
“I found that in Vladimir Milojevic’s truck. It belongs to my girlfriend, Zora Hughes. It was a gift from me.”
“This proves nothing. Maybe he gave her a lift.”
“I took a picture of the tire treads and sent them to the FBI’s crime lab. They identified the treads as belonging to a vehicle at the scene of two murders. One of the victims was Danny Matisse. The truck was registered to Milojevic.”
“I believe Mr. Milojevic reported that truck as stolen.”
“When?”
“A couple of days ago.”
“As of this morning, it was in a shed on property connected to you.”
“Did you have a warrant to search this property?”
John didn’t say anything.
“As I thought,” Stojanovic stated. “That, Mr. Iron Hawk, is called breaking and entering. Which makes this—” He picked up Zora’s bracelet. “Inadmissible in court.”
John leaned over Stojanovic’s desk. Behind him he could hear the ratcheting of a bullet being chambered. He ignored it. “All I want is my family returned. Unharmed. I don’t care about your other...businesses.”
“And let’s just say if I had it in my power to return your family, what’s in it for me? I’m a business man.”
The fury that welled up in John’s body made his frame stiffen and his blood speed like molten steel through his veins. “Trafficking in human flesh isn’t a business, it’s a cancer. A cancer that I plan to eradicate, starting with you.”
Stojanovic smiled. “Noble words, Mr. Iron Hawk. But remember that I hold all the cards. No one is going to miss a two-bit policeman from a small Indian reservation.” He waved John away as though shooing a fly. “Get him out of here.”
Each of John’s arms were grabbed from behind, one football guy on either side. A gun stuck in his side.
“Dispose of him.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the guards said.
John cursed himself. Not for the words he’d said to Stojanovic, but that he hadn’t let anyone in on his plan—or lack of plan. Always a loner, his way was now going to get him killed. His death would mean help might come too late for Zora and his daughter.
They took him down in the freight elevator. When the elevator reached the first floor, they stepped out into a corridor with brown industrial carpet and not a soul in sight.
The two goons exchanged glances. Goon One said, “I’ll go get the car. You stay here with him.”
“Hurry up, will ya.” Goon Two pushed the barrel of the gun further into John’s ribs.
John got a glimpse of a loading dock wet with melted snow when Goon One disappeared through a door at the end of the corridor.
“You don’t have to do this,” John said to the guy standing behind him.
“Shut up.”
“You could just let me go and tell Stojanovic I overpowered you.”
The guy snorted. “I might as well put a bullet in my brain.”
“Like you going to put in mine?” John asked.
“Nothing personal. Just got to do my job.”
“Right.” John waited a beat. “This is a bum deal. You having to take care of me instead of Milo.” John took a gamble. “Guess he hightailed it back over to The Pink. Saw him there a little while ago having a beer with one of the girls.” John hoped this wasn’t atypical behavior for Milo.
“Fuck. Don’t that beat all?”
Goon One chose that moment to walk through the door.
“Hey,” Goon Two said. “Milo’s over at The Pink. Thought he told the boss he was taking care of the Durham place.”
Goon One narrowed his eyes at his partner. “Shut the fuck up, and come on before someone shows up.”
Good Two tightened his grip on John. A blast of chilly wind whipped John’s coat open. His boots crunched over icy slush as they descended the steps to a car that idled at the bottom of the steps.
Goon One rushed to the car and opened the back door. His head swiveled from side to side, looking for trouble or witnesses. When Goon Two placed his hand on John’s head to push him into the car, John took one step forward, pivoted, and turned, using momentum to bring his left arm into contact with Goon Two’s gun hand, sending the arm and the resultant bullet wild. John followed through with a solid punch to the man’s throat.
Goon One was still fumbling for his gun when John kneed him in the balls. For the coup de grace, John kneed him in the face then took his weapon. Goon One crumbled like shit left too long in the sun.
∞
Driving the SUV the Goons had so conveniently left idling, John sped away from Stojanovic’s office tower. He needed a plan. He cursed himself for going up to Stojanovic’s office to bait the Serb. What had he learned in the process? One word, “Durham.” He didn’t know whether it referred to a part of the city or a street name. He needed to talk to Sommers.
Stojanovic favored big vehicles. This car was identical to the one the crime boss had been in earlier—full of bells and whistles. The car’s expensive interior all but muted the outside noise—the swish of tires plowing through icy slush, the blare of music from someone’s radio. An in-panel screen for a GPS was mounted in the dash and probably a tracking device had also been installed. Time to lose this expensive toy.
He circled back to where he’d left Emma’s Hardbody. He was back on the road, this time in a little less comfort.
Why hadn’t Milo been present for John’s almost execution? Where had he been? Had Stojanovic sent him on some errand that involved Zora and Laurie? Following the last destination of the SUV seemed a long shot now, because Milo hadn’t driven the car. And Milo was the linchpin in this entire investigation.
John reached for his cell and dialed the number for The Pink. A bored voice answered. He asked for the bartender and hoped it was the same one from earlier.
His luck held. “This is John Iron Hawk,” he said when she answered. “I was in earlier.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
The flatness of her tone gave John pause. “Can you talk?”
“No. I’m off in ten.”
“I’ll be across the street. Blue Nissan truck.”
It took him eight minutes to get to the strip joint. She exited the club in twelve and slipped into the truck a minute later.
“Rough day.”
She dug in her purse and pulled out cigarettes and a lighter. “You mind?”
The bleakness in her eyes and the tightness around her mouth made him nod. He needed information from her. If letting her have a cigarette got something he could use to find Laurie and Zora he’d suffer through a little smoke.
When she cracked her window, a draft of cold air filled the car. She lit up. The acrid smell of smoke drifted back into the car.
“What’s your name?” John asked.
“Belle.”
“What’s going on, Belle?” He nodded toward the club whose parking lot was almost filled to capacity.
She shrugged. The gesture wasn’t one of indifference but more like self-preservation.
He exercised patience he didn’t have as he waited for her to speak.
“Milo came in about an hour ago.” She took another drag on her cigarette, aiming her smoke out the window.
An hour or so ago John was disposing of the security guard in the bathroom.
“What’s he doing now?” John asked.
“Banging one of the strippers.”
“Does he have a favorite?” Maybe Milo did a little pillow talk. This female might be able to help John find Laurie and Zora.
“Nope. Whoever catches his eye.” She flicked the cigarette ash out the window. “Jasmine is the lucky girl this evening.”
Something in her tone told John Jasmine might not be so lucky.
“You ever caught his eye?”
“Once or twice,” she whispered. “Now I just try and avoid him. When he’s angry he’s mean. And he’s always angry.”
“I’m investigating the disappearance of several girls off the Little River Reservation. The trail led me here to this city and this club. I believe in addition to other businesses Stojanovic and Milo are into sex trafficking.”
She threw her cigarette out the window. “Doesn’t surprise me.”
“Have any of the girls from the club gone missing?”
“Hard to tell,” she said. “They don’t stay long. One night they’re working, and the next night they don’t show up.”
“Any parents or boyfriends show up looking for these girls?”
“Not that I know of.”
Two couples exited the club and stood in the parking lot laughing. The guys were in heavy overcoats, the girls in coats that flapped in the wind, exposing long bare legs and scanty clothing.
As one of the men leaned drunkenly into his date, she wrapped her arms around his waist. After a moment, her hand moved away from his body to drop something into her coat pocket, and they moved on to one of the parked cars.
John glanced at Belle.
Her mouth tightened. “Don’t judge. It’s a hard life, and the girls only get a third of their tips.”
“And Stojanovic lets them make a little more money by offering the clients something on the side?” John asked.
Her answer was to dig into her bag and pull out her package of cigarettes. He placed a hand over hers. “What is Durham?”
She squinted at him. “Durham? Durham what?”
John rubbed his chin and stared out at the silent street. “One of Stojanovic’s security mentioned Milo was supposed to do something at Durham.”
“Hmmm. Durham is a street—and also a section of town. A very bad section of town.”
“Vacant buildings?”
She nodded. “Vacant and boarded.”
John thought about the dream he’d had where he’d walked down a street with boarded windows, except for one house. Joseph Bearkiller would have called it a premonition.
“Give me directions.”
While she wrote John thought.
“I need you to find Milo and tell him I called and asked you about Durham Street.” Her eyes flared, and her hand went compulsively to her pale throat.
“What’s in it for me?” she asked.
John didn’t look at her but instead stared at the cars leaving the nightclub. “A chance to save the lives of a couple of young women.
She stayed silent for so long he didn’t think she’d help him.
“He’s a vicious—”
“You can do it,” John said. “But wait until he comes into the bar area. Don’t go looking for him. Understood? Make sure people are around.”
She nodded, her throat working convulsively.
“Go.” John patted her hand. “Be careful.”
∞
Milo thrust deep, burying his cock in the soft body of the woman, who lay like a corpse beneath him.
His cell buzzed.
He ignored it.
Work wouldn’t leave him alone. He was tired of this shit. Tired of being Stojanovic’s bitch.
He thrust again, but his cock had softened. “Son of a bitch.”
The blond cringed.
He’d give her something to flinch about. He twisted her nipples. She opened her mouth in a cry that sounded more like the bleep of a sheep. Tears ran from the corners of her eyes and down, smearing the makeup caked on her face. She shuddered beneath him.
His cock stiffened. More like it. He rushed for the finish. Pressure built in his spine. He could hear his breath whizzing in and out of his lungs. Almost there. Almost... Pinpoints of white light burst behind his eyelids, his body seized as an electric charge started behind his jaw and worked its way down to his toes. He hung there enjoying the sensation.
His cell buzzed again.
Rolling off the girl, he snatched up the phone. “What?”
“Where the fuck have you been?”
Stojanovic.
The woman scrambled off the bed, grabbed her clothes, and scurried out of the room like a crab.
“What is it?” His anger made the words short and abrupt.
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “Iron Hawk’s escaped.”
“Escaped? When did you have him?”
“Don’t worry about the details. Find him and dispose of him. He’s probably making his way to his girlfriend.”
“Why? How?”
“Austin may have said something about the Durham location.”
Stojanovic was losing his touch. He’d hired Danny in a moment of weakness and kept Austin and his buddy on even when they’d fucked up. Milo would have sliced them up so bad their own mothers couldn’t have recognized them.
“Where is Austin now?” Milo said from between clenched teeth.
“Don’t worry about him. I took care of that problem personally. Find Iron Hawk.”
“On it.” Milo had been dressing as they spoke.
“And Milo?”
“Yeah?” He picked his Sig off the floor and stuffed it into the back of his pants.
“Just in case the fiancée knows something about the Indian girl’s location—”
Milo’s stride had him out the door and loping down the long narrow hall toward the bar’s main section.
“Kill her too.”
∞
Too weak for anything elaborate, Zora had come up with a simple escape plan. The plan hinged on the black-haired girl—Maria—understanding what Zora had pantomimed. She had tried to communicate with the other five as they became more lucid, but the women were either too weak, too drugged or too blasted afraid to do more than cry or just stare into space. And then there was the language barrier.
Maria was the only one physically strong enough to help. The girl was to create a diversion when the men arrived with the next food delivery. A diversion would bring both men running toward her. Zora, hiding behind the door, would slip out to get help—in her bare feet, in the snow. But she blocked all that out.
Back pressed against the wall, she hugged her knees close to her chest. It had been a couple of hours since Danny’s killer had left. She expected any minute someone would burst through the door, hypodermic in hand to force her into a semicomatose state like the rest of the girls, or they would kill her because she was too much trouble. She buried her face in her knees.
She flinched when a timid hand touched her shoulder. Maria had found her way from her mattress to Zora’s. Understanding poured from the girl’s gaze. Zora gripped the other female’s hand and held on tight.
∞
Milo burst out of The Pink like the place was on fire. When his truck fishtailed its way out of the lot, John pulled out into the street behind him, trying to keep some distance.
The snow had turned to icy rain, the pellets hitting the windshield like bullets. He turned the Nissan’s defroster up to high and leaned forward trying to see through the frozen patches on the windshield.
He couldn’t blow this. Zora and Laurie’s life depended on him not fucking up. The Serb was the only link to his family. Keeping one eye on the SUV, John found Andi’s number in his phone log.
“Agent Andrea Callahan.”
“Hey, it’s John.” When he heard her intake of breath on the other end, he rushed on. “Just listen, please.”
He told her about his pursuit of Milo. “If I’m right, he’s leading me to a building where there are people being held against their will. I need some back up.”
“John—”
“I don’t have much time, Andi.” He told her where he was and where he was heading. “I can’t depend on Iles. He—”
“John. What if you’re wrong?”
His heart rate beat faster than the wheels of Emma’s truck turned. “What if I’m right?” He rushed on. “This is my daughter and girlfriend. I may only get one chance to save them.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Andi?”
“All right, John. I’ll see what I can do.”
She disconnected. He pounded his palm on the steering wheel. He didn’t like the sound of her see what I could do—not at all what he wanted to hear. He had to up the odds in Laurie and Zora’s favor.
He dialed Sommers’ cell, filling the detective in on his pursuit of Milo. Wanting to make sure he had someone at his back, he left out his phone call to the FBI. If Andi came through for him, all the better. Keeping his attention glued to the taillights of the distant vehicle but also wanting to stay in contact with Sommers, John placed his phone on the passenger seat.
The Nissan’s tires skidded. He let up on the accelerator for a moment until the truck straightened out.
“Where are you, Iron Hawk?” Sommers’ voice crackled from the open cell line.
John picked up his phone. “Just passed Rosedale on Highway 27. “He’s in a hurry. Running every red light.”
“Don’t try to keep up. He’ll make you. I’ve got a man several streets over. I’ll put him in place. Just keep Milo in sight.”
Milo was a quarter of a mile ahead and moving fast. John sped up. The last thing he wanted was to lose the bastard.
“My man’s in a white Ford truck,” Sommers voice broke in on John’s morbid thoughts.
He glanced in his rearview mirror. Pulling up on the Hardbody was the white truck. John slowed, allowing the policeman to overtake and pass him.
He made a promise to himself. When he got his family home he’d be more available for both of them. And if Zora wanted to move back to New York, he’d give it a try. Laurie might love living in a big city. Hell, he had nothing to lose. After this case Iles might see to it he lost his job, even if he won the election.
The area became seedier. Pawn shops and liquor stores replaced middle class houses. Almost every other street light worked. Within a mile of the point where the white truck had slipped into the chase, the area became a mixture of low-income housing and industry.
Milo’s truck slowed.
“He just turned onto a street that leads to a maze of smaller streets. Keep back,” Sommers said. “You might have to go in on foot.”
“On foot? Are you crazy?” John shouted. “We could lose him. We don’t even know his destination.”
“Calm down, Iron Hawk. Durham Street is only two blocks long. The houses have no garages so we’ll be able to spot the truck. Just follow my officer’s lead.”
The white truck pulled over to the curb once they’d made a right turn onto a one-way street. John almost drove Emma’s Nissan up on the curb in his haste to park. He leaped out of his vehicle. It was snowing again. The thicker flakes made visibility poor. He jammed his Stetson on his head and pulled Goon One’s Sig from the small of his back. He released the clip. Full. Then jammed it back in place.
A short guy jumped out of the white Ford and made his way toward John. “There’s no place for Milo to hide his truck. My guess is that it will be outside one of the abandoned houses in the neighborhood,” Sommers’ man said.
They took off at a jog.
∞
No plan ever goes as intended. Zora had no warning. No sound of a cart. No voices in the hall. Just the door opening with a bang and Danny’s killer standing in the doorway.
She and Maria exchanged a panicked glance. In that second they knew their plan was shot to hell.
He never took his eyes off Zora as he maneuvered toward her through the mattresses. Heads rose from their thin padded beds to follow his progress.
She stood up and stumbled backward until the wall stopped her progress.
The ceiling’s naked bulb glinted dully off his knife. Holding the switchblade in his right hand, he motioned Zora toward him with his left.
Like hell.
In Zora’s peripheral vision, Maria rose from her mattress. Don’t do anything stupid.
The Hispanic woman spat something in Spanish just before she leaped on the guy’s back. Cursing, he spun in a circle trying to dislodge the girl. She hung on like a leech, her hands in his hair, and her teeth at his neck as he slashed at her legs.
The attack caught Zora off guard, and for a moment, she could only watch in horror as rivulets of blood flowed down the Hispanic woman’s leg. The screams of the other captives pole-vaulted Zora into action.
She ran, tripping over bodies and limbs as she struggled toward the door and freedom.
∞
The screams raised the hair on John’s neck. The sound came from the house just ahead—the one with boarded windows on the lower level and one dim light shining on the second floor. The house in his dreams.
Footprints led up the path to the front door—prints that hadn’t been refilled with snow. Probably Milo’s footprints.
John kicked the front door open. The wood splintered easily beneath his boot.
“Police!” He didn’t know if he’d been heard above the screams.
Crouching, he stepped into the ramshackle house and scanned the dark interior. Nothing moved. The steps directly opposite the front door led to the upper level. Gun drawn, he eased up the stairs, one cautious step at a time.
At the sound of footsteps rushing up behind him, John pivoted. Sommers’ officer pounded up the steps like a white buffalo closing in on the herd. What the fuck? John motioned for him to stay put. Who’d taught this guy police procedure? John wasn’t going to get himself killed because this yokel didn’t know what he was doing.
A glare of defiance flashed in the other man’s eyes before John turned away and continued his climb.
Weak light shone from a room at the end of the corridor. He moved swiftly, his approach masked by the screams.
∞
Zora had almost made it to the door when it flew open. John lunged through, gun drawn, body crouched.
She’d dreamed about being rescued for so long she thought it was just that—a dream. His voice shouting her name released her from her frozen state.
But that dream exploded into a nightmare when a second man crossed the threshold. Their guard. And he had a gun pointed straight at John.
“Look out!” She started forward but a hand snaked around her neck, holding her tight.
“Don’t move, Princess.”
She felt the point of his blade at her throat, digging into her flesh. A warm dribble of liquid ran from her neck to her collarbone. She didn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe.
John’s gaze shifted from her to the guard.
“I’m okay,” she mouthed. She was terrified, but she couldn’t sacrifice his life.
“Nice and slow,” the guard said. “Hand over your weapon.”
John’s eyes shifted to the man who stood behind her.
“Don’t do it,” the guard said. “Milo will slit her throat faster than you can blink.”
“Sommers will be here any minute,” John said.
“I don’t think so,” the guard said. “Stojanovic pays him too much to look the other way.”
“Son of bitch,” John muttered.
“Yeah, ain’t it,” the guard agreed.
The arm around Zora’s throat tightened. “Quit the jabbering,” Milo said. “Just shoot him.”
Zora’s gaze flew to John. No. The word screamed through her brain. He stared back at her, communicating his love with one intense stare.
No. This can’t be happening.
Her vision narrowed down to a dark tunnel. Her knees buckled. She tried to hold on but felt herself falling.
Darkness descended. From somewhere far off she heard two reports and then nothing.
