Page 15 of Falling for the Delta
“Go into the PX!” Holly yelled as she pointed toward the entrance to the store. It was down the large open space to the left. There was an employee looking their way, obviously startled by Holly’s shouts.
“Go to the back, away from the windows! Go, go, go!” Holly ordered trying to get the customers milling around the outer area of the store to get to safety.
For whatever reason, people seemed to listen to her. Everyone ran toward the PX entrance as if their lives depended on it…which they probably did.
Holly turned to check on where the man with the gun was once more and was alarmed to see how much ground he’d made in the short time she’d taken her eyes off him.
He was yelling now. In Arabic. His voice was muffled through the glass, but it was obvious he was delusional, shouting “Allahu Akbar” over and over.
He might think his God was the greatest, but Holly couldn’t waste any time thinking about what his motives might be, because next, she immediately saw Dash. He was in the parking lot, in the direct path of the crazy man with the gun.
In a few seconds, the shooter was going to walk right past the vehicle Dash was crouched behind—and probably take the opportunity to shoot him.
Then Holly noticed that Dash wasn’t alone. He was crouched with a woman and her child, a little girl probably around five years old. The terror on their faces was clear, even from where Holly was standing.
She moved without thinking. If she could get the shooter’s attention, make him change direction and come after her, he wouldn’t see Dash, or the woman and child.
With adrenaline coursing through her veins, Holly ran faster than she’d ever run in her life to get to the opposite side of the lobby, to the other door. She burst through and turned to see the shooter.
She opened her mouth and yelled in Arabic as loud as she could. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
The man immediately stopped and turned to look at her. An evil smile crossed his face and he changed direction, pointing his rifle at Holly as he walked toward her. He began to speak in Arabic, talking about his mission and Allah once more.
Holly didn’t stick around to listen—she bolted back into the lobby in the front of the PX.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the mother and little girl running toward the other side of the building. She sighed in relief as they disappeared around the brick structure, safe.
But Dash didn’t follow them. Instead, he ran for the door on the other end of the PX lobby.
More gunshots rang out and the glass in one of the huge windowpanes at the front of the building shattered into a million pieces. Holly couldn’t help but let out a scream of fright. She ducked and ran toward the other door…and Dash. She had no idea what he was going to do, but just having him there made her feel a hundred times safer.
The look on Dash’s face as he slammed through the door made Holly pause for a moment.
This was the soldier. The deadly Delta Force operative.
Then she was in his arms. But it wasn’t a loving embrace. His hands were rough as they grabbed her biceps and forced her down into a crouch behind one of the kiosks in the middle of the lobby.
More gunshots rang out, and another window shattered.
“I’m going to kill you, woman. I must kill all infidels!”
“What’s he saying?” Dash asked.
Holly told him, then couldn’t help but be impressed at the litany of swear words that left his mouth. The man next to her was as different as night and day from the man she’d spent the last couple of weeks sleeping next to. He was hard, deadly. But Holly wasn’t scared of him.
How could she be scared of the man she loved?
“On the count of three, we’re going to make a run for the entrance to the PX,” Dash told her.
Holly shook her head. They wouldn’t make it. How she knew that, she wasn’t sure. But she knew if they even peeked their heads out from behind their hiding space, they were dead. Dash wasn’t armed; why would he be on a random weekday? But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do whatever he could to stop the threat. That was just who he was. And Holly couldn’t lose him. Not after she’d finally found him.
Time seemed to stop. Holly stared at Dash and tried to let him know without words how much she loved him. She’d never said it out loud, figuring she had plenty of time to tell him later.
Sirens sounded in the distance, and Holly got an idea. She thought about how many people were probably hiding inside the building. The parking lot had been pretty full. If the shooter got inside, there was no telling how many people might be wounded or killed.
“They’re coming!” she yelled in Arabic. “You better run!”
It was lame, but she didn’t have time to think of anything better to say. She didn’t really want the man on the loose on the post, but she definitely didn’t want him coming inside the building.
