Page 191 of The Lonely Road

The sound in my kitchen is enormous.

He goes down—the way large men go down when something unexpected and decisive happens to them—with a kind of stunned disbelief, hitting the floor before the mind has finished processing what the body already knows.

His knife lands somewhere near the kitchen counter. He’d have to be one of those Marvel superheroes with an arm he can elongate to reach it.

He starts swearing.

Loudly.

Continuously.

His leg is bleeding—I hit the outside of the thigh, clean through—and he’s on the floor in my kitchen holding it and yelling at me.

Bitch being one of the words he uses excessively.

I keep the gun on him.

My hands are not shaking.

This surprises me.

“Don’t move.” My voice comes out cool. “I have four more rounds and significantly less patience.”

He doesn’t move. I doubt he can. In the movies, a man can get up after he’s shot and jump off a building, but in real life, a gunshot wound puts you down.

Mason comes through the front door forty seconds later.

I hear the Wrangler before I hear the door—the sound of it taking the gravel drive too fast, which tells me he heard the shot from the road.

He has his Glock in his hand and takes in the kitchen in under a second—Trafton on the floor, the blood, me standing in the hallway with the SIG held steady.

His eyes snap to mine—fear flashing, panic close behind. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

His attention drops to the man bleeding out on my tiled kitchen floor. Thank God it’s not hardwood, I think inanely. Cleaning that would be a nightmare.

Trafton tracks him with an expression that’s moved well past grudge and settled somewhere closer to reckoning.

Mason pulls out his phone and dials. “Dillon, need you at Taya’s place. Got Trafton here.” Pause. “He’s alive.” Pause. “No, she did.” Laugh. Pause. “A SIG.” He hangs up and then walks to the kitchen counter.

He takes the dish towel off the oven handle. He crouches beside Trafton, not gently, and wraps the towel around the leg with the competence of a man who has done field triage and is not interested in Trafton’s comfort, only in keeping him alive long enough to be useful.

“You came to her house,” Mason snaps.

Trafton says something in the vicinity of “Go fuck yourself.”

“I don’t think so.” Mason ties the towel tighter. Trafton swears again.

He stands up and assesses Trafton and my handiwork. “Nice shot.”

“Thank you.”

“Outside of the thigh.”

“I know where I aimed.”

“I know you do.” He squints at Trafton on the floor. “He’ll live.”