No Ordinary Day by Tate, Harley (best large ereader .txt) 📕

Emma glugged down another mouthful of liquor. “I’m thinking you’re going to be doing this in this interrogation.”

“I know.” She stepped over to the man sprawled out in the chair and kicked his boot. He groaned. She tried again. No response. Gloria pinched the bridge of her nose as doubt crept in. “Tell me we aren’t being ridiculous.”

“We aren’t being rid-rid-ridi—” Emma hiccupped. “We aren’t being silly.”

Gloria sucked in a deep breath. “Fake it ‘til you make it, right?” She pulled the handgun she’d stolen from the man out from beneath her waistband and held it in her right hand as she reached for the tequila with her left. Emma frowned, but handed the bottle over.

“Time to wake up!” Gloria splashed the liquor across the man’s face.

He spluttered and gagged and his eyes shot open only to blink shut just as fast. He shook his head, ridding his face of the burning liquid as he tested his restraints, tugging his arms and legs and rocking back in the chair.

Gloria took a swig of liquid courage before slamming the bottle on the table. “If you don’t tell me who you work for right now, so help me God, you’ll regret it.” She felt like a caricature of every spy thriller she watched as a teenager, only even more impotent.

The man laughed, loud and unafraid. “You really think I’m going to tell a fluffy little research scientist and her sidekick what they want to know because a gun’s pointed at me?”

Gloria took a step closer, aiming right between the man’s eyes. “We know you work with John. He’s on the way back any minute. I can’t imagine you want to face him instead of me.”

He didn’t even flinch. “If he’s really helping you, then John must be further gone than any of us thought.”

Emma shifted in her seat at the table. “Did Dane tell you the hit is still on? Even after the blackout?”

The man’s eyes flicked up toward Emma. “You think I’m impressed because you know Dane’s name? I’m not. You’ll still be dead by morning.” He leaned back in the chair, pulling the front two legs off the ground like he didn’t have a care in the world. “You got lucky with Dominic. I’ll give you that. Even if you kill me, the next guy who comes won’t be such an easy mark.”

Gloria believed him. From what Emma described of Zach’s murder, they hadn’t encountered the worst of John’s coworkers. She gritted her teeth and leaned forward, pressing the gun against the hitman’s temple until his skin puckered around the metal.

“Last chance. Tell us who’s coming and when or I put a bullet in your brain.”

He closed his eyes and smiled. “Go ahead, sweetheart. Going down at the hand of a hot Latina’s always been one of my fantasies.”

Rage boiled up inside Gloria, her breath quickened, her pulse thundered, and the edges of her vision tinged red. She flipped the gun around in her hand and slammed the butt of the pistol hard enough into the man’s skull to knock him out. “We’re never going to get any information out of him.”

“John might be able to, if he ever comes back,” Emma offered.

Gloria agreed. She didn’t trust John, but as long as Raymond was present, she felt a modicum of safety. He never let anyone hurt her, not John, not those two teenagers on the road, no one. As long as he was alive, they had a chance at making it through this new world order, regardless of how horrible it may become.

“Holly?” Gloria called for the teenager. “I need your help.”

The door to the bedroom opened so fast, Holly must have been poised on the other side, waiting. “Anything.”

“We need to drag this jerk into the bedroom and find a way to secure him in there.”

Holly nodded as she opened the door wider. An angry, yipping Pringles shoved his way through the opening, nose sniffing the air as he neared the stranger.

Gloria reached down to pet the little dog behind the ear. “I’m sorry you were so excluded. I know you have more fight in you than any of us, but you can’t help that you’re so little.” She set the pistol on the table and reached for the man’s arm. “I’ll take his left; you take his right.”

Holly did as instructed, digging her arm beneath the man’s slack muscles as Gloria turned back to Emma. “I think there’s some duct tape in the garage. Can you find it? I think we need all the help securing him we can get.”

Emma rose on unsteady feet but managed to stay upright. “I’ll meet you back there.”

Gloria turned back around and on the count of three, she and Holly hoisted the man and the chair toward the door.

Chapter Seven

Emma

Emma dozed on the chair, head resting on the kitchen table. Between the pain radiating from her shoulder and the booze coursing through her system, she could barely think a coherent thought, let alone articulate one. She checked her watch.

Over three hours since John and Raymond left for Walmart. Even with the drive from the cabin, they should have been back an hour ago at least. Emma cast a glance at the closed bedroom door where Gloria watched over the unconscious man, gun resting in her lap.

The events of that morning played over and over in an endless loop in Emma’s mind. The conversation with the man on the drive, the first shot, the chase, the final bullet. She swallowed down a wave of nausea.

I’m a killer. The visions of that stranger’s face as his eyes lost their humanity—as his very soul dimmed out—would haunt her for the rest of her life. How was she ever going to get over what she had done? How would she ever live with herself knowing she ended another person’s life?

As a sobering realization emerged, Emma sat straighter in the chair. How many more lives