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Too many things
STRANGER
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MY BULLET HITS Annie in her right bicep.
Drops of blood as fine as dust fan across the air like pink fog around her, marking the snow.
Her handgun drops to the snow with a dull clank and lands four feet to her right.
She looks up at me, her mouth quirking, maybe with surprise, before her knees buckle, and she hits the ground.
In the aftermath of the gun’s report, my ears ring, the sound warping and stretching.
Mia shouts something from the water, the flimsy excuse for a canoe she’s in shooting out into the lake like a rocket, collapsing under her weight. What the fuck was she thinking diving into it like that?
We’ve only got a couple minutes before she freezes.
I stalk to Annie. I should kill her.
But the last thing I want after everything is to be the guy who kills Mia’s best friend, even if that friend is a deranged killer.
Annie crawls awkwardly across the frozen mud and slush and stones toward the gun, using one elbow and her knees, her feet scrambling to get purchase. She’s close, her fingers only a few inches from the gun, when I kick her in the arm, smackdab in the center of the bullet hole, sending her flopping onto her back like a fish belly-up, hissing and grunting.
Her mouth screws up like she’s getting ready to talk, to say a whole bunch of shit I’m sure I don’t want to hear. I pull back and connect the toe of my boot with her temple in a blow I hope will knock her out but not knock her stupid forever.
Her eyes roll back, and she goes still.
I grab the gun and tuck it into the back of my jeans.
“Stay there, Mia,” I shout.
Maybe I can tow the boat in before she gets too wet.
I turn back just in time to see her hurl one of her boots in the water, and dive in after it, fully submerging herself in water that’s only a degree or two from frozen.
Jesus. We’re still a full half mile from the house or a car or anywhere I can get her to keep her warm.
“Fuck.” I leave Mia floundering in the water, and jog back to Annie, yank off her coat, and tug down her sweatpants, leaving her slack, pale skinny body in the snow, on a slowly spreading bed of red.
Mia’s made it about half way to shore, splashing slush and keeping up a steady stream of shouts. Her words are meaningless over the rest of the noise.
I dump Annie’s jacket and pants by the edge of the water, and make my way to Mia, stomping into the slushy water to just above my knees, and fuck it’s cold. Blinding, burning cold.
Mia’s teeth chatter, her lips bold blue in a deadly white face.
She keeps shouting at me as I haul her wet body against me. “The ba-ba-ba-beeees,” she sputters through her lips, her voice high-pitched and desperate. “Don’t hurt her.”
I drag her up the bank. Her clothes and the cold have weighed her down so much that her feet don’t work, and she’s stumbling so much I have to lift her into my arms.
Before we’re even all the way out of the water, I yank at her sopping wet coat, then peel her out of a shirt so cold and wet my fingers get stiff. When I tear her jeans down, she falls into the snow and lands on her ass, still shouting at me. “The ba-ba-beees. The babies. C-can’t hurt her.”
It worries me that she’s not even shivering anymore.
I pull the dripping jeans from her ankles and snatch Annie’s pants from the snow, start shoving Mia into them, cursing when they stick to wet skin.
She’s not helping me, still shouting, so finally I pause.
“She’s fine,” I snarl. “I shot her in the arm. And kicked her in the head. She’s unconscious. Now stop fucking fighting me.”
Her brows snap together, but finally her shoulders relax, and she’s unnaturally still as I finish bundling her into Annie’s dry coat.
I heft her fireman style over my shoulders and get to my feet. I need to get her inside, get her warm. I make it half way to the tree line when she starts bucking on my shoulders, twisting and writhing and generally making it impossible to hang on to her.
I trip on a log and stumble, nearly dropping her, my own feet starting to get sluggish in my waterlogged and frozen boots. “Mia, let me get you back to the house.”
“Annie,” she shouts. “We can’t leave her there. She’ll freeze to death.”
“I don’t give a shit. She just tried to kill you. We should dump her ass in the lake.”
She nods, her pale eyelids drooping. “I know, but still. Get her. I’ll walk.”
I want to shout at her that I’m trying to be a hero here. I’m trying to do the right thing for her, save her life, and if she’d only cooperate it will be fine, but she’s right. Annie will probably die if we leave her half-naked and bleeding in the snow for as long as it will take for me to get Mia back and warm. Not to mention the inherent risk of leaving a deranged woman hell-bent on murder unsupervised and unimpeded.
So I don’t bother arguing, I simply turn back on my clumsy freezing feet, march back to Annie’s prone body, and sit down in the snow, with Mia on my legs so her bare toes don’t touch the snow. Her teeth are finally chattering, but her fingers aren’t working well enough, so I have to yank Annie’s boots off for her, and shove her feet into them.
It’s the last thing I want to do, but I lift Annie’s scrawny body over my shoulders and stand up. Mia sways but keeps her balance in Annie’s shoes, and together we set off toward the house.
It takes too long, but the movement seems to help Mia’s body warm up a little. She’s still deathly white, her lips an ugly purple, but she’s moving. As long as she’s moving, she’ll be fine.
She opens the front door for me. It swings wide, slams into the wall with a crash that shakes the house, and echoes around the foyer. It’s one of those old houses with black and white marble floors, wood paneling, and oil paintings on the walls. All it’s missing is a coat of armor in a wall niche under the stairs.
“Everything okay?” A man shouts from somewhere inside. Greg, I assume.
A minute later he appears, eyes round in his square face. He takes in Mia, then me and Annie. “What the fuck is going on?”
Mia’s shaking so hard and sputtering, her fingers shivering as she manages to shut the door behind us.
I glance at Greg. “Get Mia upstairs. Now.”
“What’s wrong with Annie?”
Too many things wrong with this guy’s wife to name, so I just send him a dark glance, and start walking up the stairs. “Upstairs Mia, now. I want you in the shower, getting warm.”
She doesn’t argue, but does send a long look at Greg.
Greg glares at me. I’d rather not do this, but he’s not exactly cooperating and while I’m fine with letting Annie bleed out in his foyer, I’m not fine with Mia’s purple lips. So I slide my gun from my pocket, level it at his face. “Up the fucking stairs. Now.”
His jaw drops.
“Move.”
With a long, steady breath, he glances at the living room, where I’m guessing the babies are, and follows Mia up the stairs. “Is Annie okay?”
“She’s better than she deserves to be,” I say when we get to the top of the landing. The house has a pair of hallways that stretch to the left and right.
Blood drips from Annie’s fingers and lands on the carpet.
“Mia? What’s going on?” Greg stares at his wife on my shoulders, glares at my gun. “Who is this guy?”
Mia staggers down the hallway, her feet clumsy, and we follow. Annie’s light, but she’s starting to get heavy on my shoulders, forcing my neck to jut forward, and the way Greg keeps glancing at me, I half expect him to bum rush me any minute now.
I tap my finger on the side of the gun. “Don’t try anything, Greg. In a minute I’ll put your wife down, we can take a look at her arm. Mia can take a warm shower, and we can discuss what just happened. But for now, your only job is to stay alive for your kids, and the only way you’re going to do that is if you don’t fuck with me.”
He takes a deep breath, his mouth tightening, but his shoulders relax slightly and he follows Mia down the hallway.