Page 91 of Wayward

I turned to Gale for confirmation.

“I think I’ve seen one since I moved here, and that was way up on the ridge line. It’s far more likely that—”

There was a shot.

The sound would be forever imprinted in my brain.

I’d been shot at many times, hit a few, so I was already moving by the time the second one came.

The window next to Misha shattered, and had the rifle been an automatic, which I was used to, Misha would be dead. There was no way a barrage of bullets would have missed him. Instead, one bullet hit the wall next to the refrigerator. The next lodged into the living-room wall.

Single bullets. Bolt-action rifle. Certainly one a sniper used, and yet I wasn’t hit.

“Misha!” I yelled, and he jumped off the chair and ran for me. Ada grabbed him because she was under me, shielded by my body.

Gale was crawling toward the back door. “I’m gonna go get my gun and—”

“Fuck no, you’re not,” I yelled at him.

“Maks, I’m unarmed,” he retorted angrily, and I knew why. He was scared and vulnerable, terrified of losing me, of Ada getting hurt or Misha. I knew he wasn’t worried about himself, and I sympathized, but him running outside when we didn’t know who was out there or how many there were was a terrible idea.

Another shot, this one near where Gale would have been if he’d kept moving. And that made no sense, but then it clicked in my brain. I wasn’t the smartest guy, but I knew who would come after me and who wouldn’t.

“Code thirty,” Gale yelled into his phone, having decided to call his station for help since I was not letting him out of the house. “Shots fired at my home. Be advised that I’m in the bungalow behind the large house.”

Pulling my phone from my back pocket, I called Deputy US Marshal Martina Alvarez, and she answered on the second ring. “Are you in distress, Maks?”

I had to wonder if she had all the numbers of the people she watched programmed into her phone, or if I was one of the lucky ones since my case was so high profile. “Shots have been fired into my home,” I told her quickly.

“Okay, stay on the phone. I’m on my way and bringing backup.”

Another shot, again toward the back of the house, and then Misha started barking, got away from Ada, and would have returned to his chair, I was sure, but I snagged him and tucked him under my chin. He was barking his head off and growling for good measure. He was mad that someone was in his yard.

“It’s okay,” I soothed him, rubbing my chin on top of his head. “You’re a good boy. Yes, you are, such a good boy.”

There were lights on the front window for a moment and then gone.

“I think whoever did the shooting just left,” I told Alvarez. “But you should probably still come, don’t you think?”

“We are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting when I get there,” she told me. “And you should pack your things and find someone to take your dog.”

I laughed. “I’m not doing any of that. See ya when you get here.” I hung up before she could say another word, then looked at Gale across the room.

“You just got here,” he said sadly.

“Come here.”

On his hands and knees, he crawled over to me, dropping down beside me and Ada.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised. “But I think we should take this time before everyone but the marines gets here to figure out who’s trying to kill you.”

His breath caught, and he stared at me. “No, Maks, this was about you, not—”

“Unfortunately, that was all about you.”

“That can’t be.”

But I knew better.