side of the nurses’ station when the man that Slate had been playing as a fool paused, pulled a gun out, and aimed it directly at me.
I did as any daughter of Max Tremaine would do in that second.
I dove for cover and made sure that my ass wasn’t exposed.
I would’ve accomplished it, too, had the man that had a gun aimed at my head not kicked a cart full of medical supplies at me, knocking me off my trajectory, and practically throwing me against Slate’s legs.
“Drop it!” an angry voice boomed.
I looked up to see a cop with a gun aimed at the gunman.
The gunman’s eyes went electric as he practically vibrated with rage. His eyes on the cop and no longer me.
I took my chance because I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Slate would protect me with his life if it came down to it.
And I didn’t want it to come down to it.
Not at all.
Once I was securely behind the cart, I poked my head out around the side and watched.
“No.” The gunman shook his head, fingers tightening on the butt of the gun. “I will not.”
“You’ve already committed a felony for assaulting a healthcare worker,” the cop gestured with his chin to me, or where I would have been had I still been in my earlier spot. Slate, however, was guarding the goddamn cart with his body now, making my heart feel funny. He had an IV stand in his hands, and he was holding it as if he would swing it at anything that ever aimed to cause me harm. “And resisting arrest as well as whatever else we can pin on you. Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
The man swung his gun in a different direction. This time at the psych patient who was no longer smiling, but still looked way too serene to be in a gunman’s crosshairs.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” he hissed at her. “That you should’ve stayed home and left well enough alone.”
“She’s alive,” the woman said in a near monotone voice, no inflection whatsoever. “And she has Linnie.”
The gunman scoffed. “Who fucking cares? What is your obsession? If you’d just left well enough alone, I wouldn’t be here on Dad’s request.”
“Then maybe you should stop being Dad’s little bitch,” Monotone Girl suggested.
The gunman burst out laughing but stopped just as quickly when he saw a security guard creeping up behind him and swung the gun around. “No.”
The security guard got the message and backed up without a word.
My eyes went back to the gunman.
“And.” The man swung his gun back, aimed once again at Monotone Girl. The woman didn’t look scared at all. How did you not get scared when there was a gun aimed at you? “I’m not Dad’s little bitch, you are, which is why I’m fucking here instead of doing other important shit like…” He trailed off.
“Put the gun down,” the cop ordered.
“Can’t,” the gunman said. “I’m under strict orders to bring her home or…”
“Or what?” Monotone Girl laughed, this time with a little bit of her crazy leaking out in the manic state of her eyes. “Come on, tell us. Or what?”
The man looked at her sadly. “I’m tired of handling you anyway, Tara. You’re exhausting.”
“I’m exhausting,” she agreed. “But I’m Daddy’s baby. I’m Daddy’s one and only girl. I’m Daddy’s ticket.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But honestly, so is Theo. If you’re not here, then it all goes to Theo.”
The woman went absolutely…wild.
There were literally no other words for what happened next.
“Don’t say that!” she screeched.
The bed tipped over. The officer that’d seemingly come out of nowhere tried to catch it, but instead of holding it steady, they both went down.
Which was how both the officer and the woman ended up getting shot.
The gunman shot two off before anybody could react.
The officer took one to the foot, and the woman took one to the head.
Then, as if in slow motion, Slate moved.
Before anyone could get a shot off, the gunman was down, with hundreds of pounds of muscle and bone hitting him so hard that I could swear I heard things crack.
My last stray thought before everything was quiet was that ‘I hope I don’t have to do an X-ray on him.’
***
Turns out there was a lot of paperwork to do when someone was shot right in front of you…who knew?
My eyes kept trailing over to the man at my side—the man that hadn’t left my side