Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

sure to keep an eye on the gate as I did, just in case any more cars came speeding out. None did, at least not immediately, so I turned my focus back to the overturned sedan. I could see through the broken glass that my bullet had hit whoever was sitting there.

“Come out with your hands up!” I yelled as I slowly approached the car. The driver-side door swung open with a crunch as glass and metal scraped together. A tall man with shortly cropped red hair stepped out wearing a smarmy smile. His hands went up, but the cocky look on his face put me on edge.

“Get down on the ground,” I commanded as I stepped toward him. He got to one knee, and I quickly circled around to cuff his hands behind his back. I heard him chuckle as I was clicking the handcuffs into place behind his back. “What’s so funny?”

The man looked over his shoulder to sneer at me, but he didn’t answer. A chill ran down my spine, and I snapped my head around to look back toward the gate, expecting to see another car full of suspects come barreling toward us. Instead, I saw a thin plume of dark smoke and an eerie orange glow emanating from one of the windows. It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at.

The castle was on fire.

“Dammit,” I hissed as I hauled the man to his feet and turned around to look for Junior. I could see him hovering over Callahan just a few feet away from the road. I noticed that the jacket and sweater he’d been wearing this morning were gone now, and he was down to a thin undershirt.

“Hey!” I called without loosening my grip on the suspect’s arms. “Is everything okay?”

Junior looked up at me. There was a grim expression on his face, and he was silent as he staggered to his feet and walked over to where the suspect and I were.

“Callahan’s still alive,” he muttered as he glared venomously at the suspect. “Barely. I counted four bullet wounds, though it’s hard to tell with how much blood there was. I didn’t want to move him. I used my jacket and sweater to staunch the flow, but he needs to get to a hospital right now.”

“Have you called for an ambulance?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Junior shivered against the cold. “I called just a minute ago. They said it might take a while since the nearest hospital is half an hour away.”

The suspect snickered, and I shoved him roughly against our damaged van.

“Watch this idiot,” I growled. “I need to find Seamus. The damned castle is on fire!”

I waited until Junior had a good grip on the man before running over to the other side of the road. Seamus had taken cover on the same side of the van as Junior, but only Junior had come running to assist Callahan and me. As much as I wanted to focus on the castle, Seamus was more critical. I could only hope that he wasn’t hurt too badly.

I spotted him instantly, lying in a patch of tall grass on the other side of the dirt road. His face was covered in blood, and he appeared to be unconscious, but I could see his chest rise and fall as he took in steady breaths.

“Seamus,” I called as I shook his shoulder gently. I didn’t want to move him around too much if he had internal injuries, but I needed to get him awake.

His eyes flew open, and he suddenly sat up violently, thrashing around as though he was being attacked by invisible assailants.

“What happened?” he cried as he turned to look at me.

“We were attacked,” I replied. “How much do you remember?”

I watched as Seamus took several deep breaths and clutched at his head.

“All of it, I think.” He nodded slowly and pulled his hand away from his head. It was slick with his own blood. “Had to get my bearings for a second there. I tried to jump out of the way, but the car came right for me. It must have knocked me out cold. Did you stop them?”

“No,” I replied bitterly. “We caught one of the men, but the ones in the armored jeep got away.”

“Bollocks,” Seamus groaned. “How’s the damage, then? Is everyone okay?”

I must have hesitated a moment too long before answering because Seamus’s eyes went wide, and he suddenly shot to his feet.

“What’s happened?” He demanded anxiously. “Where’s Callahan and the other agent?”

“Calm down,” I warned him, but he was already storming off. He had a head injury and probably shouldn’t have been moving around so much, but there was little I could do to stop him. I followed him around the van to where Junior and the suspect were standing.

“Where’s Callahan?” he shouted. He turned and spotted his partner lying in the grass before any of us could answer.

“The ambulance is on the way,” Junior assured Seamus as he rushed to Callahan’s side. I could tell it did little to comfort him, though. “And I called again for the fire department this time.

The suspect snickered again, and I rounded on him angrily.

“You set your own base on fire?” I asked the man, and he burst into outright laughter.

“It’s a small price to pay,” he smirked.

I gritted my teeth in frustration. If the ambulance was expected to take half an hour to get here, I doubted the fire department’s time would be much shorter. There might not be anything left for us to investigate by that point.

I could hear the anguish in Seamus’s voice as he spoke words of encouragement to Callahan. We couldn’t do anything aside from standing here and waiting for help to arrive, and I’d never felt so powerless.

20

Charlie

The ambulance arrived after only twenty minutes, but it still felt like a painfully long time. I watched as the paramedics loaded Callahan into the ambulance. His face was ashen, and his black uniform was