start to run toward the woman. I raised the AR to my shoulder, snugged it tight, hit the optics switch, and lit up the hyena’s hindquarters. I fired and the 6.8 ammo turned the beast, took his back legs out from under him. He whirled and turned. He looked at me, and it wasn’t an animal’s look. He turned and started to run away from the woman, away from the children, toward the woods that edged the yard. If he got into the trees we’d lose him.
I used the side of the now-still chopper to steady me; I didn’t still my breath, I stopped breathing. I heard Ares’ voice in my head from the shooting range. He was a sniper. I did most of my shooting within twenty-five to fifty yards. The hyena was more than a hundred yards away and still moving, shot to hell and still moving well. A hundred, a hundred and fifty yards, it didn’t matter, the head was there, I had it in my optics, just like he’d shown me. ‘Lead the target, where’s the wind.’ I always had trouble with wind. I pulled the trigger.
The hyena somersaulted and fell into a pool of darkness on the edge of the woods. I had to know, had to be sure. I stumbled out of the Black Hawk. My side wasn’t right, numb, and it seemed like it took a long time to cross the yard with the AR held at the ready at my shoulder. There was a spotlight sweeping over me, following me. I heard another helicopter, but I kept my eyes on the place where he’d fallen.
The pilot was beside me now, his own rifle at his shoulder. He said something, but I couldn’t understand it. The spotlight stayed with us so that the harsh white light showed Ares lying in the grass. He was human again, but it looked like he’d been decapitated. Fingerprints, fingerprints would be the way they’d ID him, because it was too late for dental.
I stood over what was left of him and let the AR swing back on its strap. I dropped to my knees beside him. The pilot asked, ‘Are you hurt?’
I shook my head and then I realized my side hurt. I put my hand down and came away with fresh blood. ‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘You’re hit,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I am.’ I slid slowly to the grass and was on my back staring up at the second helicopter and its spotlight. It was a news chopper. We were going to be live on the local news. Fuck, again.
The pilot was back with the med kit. He was holding pressure on the wound low in my side. I was betting it was the copilot’s bullet when he’d been shooting down at the hyena. Damn friendly fire.
I looked at the body just a few feet away. I looked at the man just a few feet away. I looked at Ares just a few feet away. I looked at what was left of Ares. I looked at what my bullet had done to him. He’d have been so impressed that I made the shot. He’d have been so proud that he’d finally taught me to read wind direction. I might have even let him believe I’d calculated the wind that fast, but I hadn’t. The truth was I still couldn’t read wind direction and make the change in a long shot, but I wouldn’t have told him that. It was a guy thing, and for some reason that made me start to cry. I heard the distant whoop-whoop of ambulance sirens. The pilot pressed too hard, and I half rose up, saying, ‘Ow, damn it,’ but it was too much movement. The night swam in streamers of color and shadow, and when the darkness reached up to swallow the world I didn’t fight it.
33
The quiet murmur of voices woke me. I tried to move my arm and something pulled. I opened my eyes and found an IV in my left arm. It was taped down to a board, which meant it wasn’t the first time I’d tried to move the arm while I was unconscious. The monitor’s light seemed brighter than it should have in the darkened room, but it beeped slow and steady by the bed with its metal rails.
‘Oh, good, you’re awake.’ The nurse smiled down at me. Her voice was lower than usual for a nurse, and as if she’d read my thoughts she said,