Ghosts by Matt Rogers (ap literature book list txt) 📕

violently. Blood flecked the side of her face. Not hers. From what King could gather, the bullet that had passed between them had grazed Kerr’s cheek, which was what had made Violetta let go of her in the first place. It hadn’t directly hit her, because if it had she’d be on the ground bleeding out instead of running for her life.

Lucky bitch, King thought.

Violetta shouted, ‘She knows where Elsa is!’

King still had his sights on Kerr’s rapidly shrinking silhouette.

He could still hit her effortlessly.

He didn’t lower his aim.

He said, ‘Someone here will know.’

‘Don’t risk it,’ Violetta said. ‘Let her go. We’ll get her back.’

‘How?’

Violetta didn’t answer.

King thought it through. It didn’t take long. It was a better option than leaving the DA gunned down in an industrial zone, her answers snuffed out along with her life.

He nodded.

Violetta chanced a look over the SUV’s trunk. She caught a sliver of view, then threw herself back down to avoid a cluster of shots. The first shooter was proving relentless in his assault.

The colour had vanished from Violetta’s face. King could see it clearly in the dark.

She said, ‘Alexis isn’t there.’

‘What?’

King risked a glance over the hood. Saw the same thing. No-man’s-land bare and empty, save for the fat corpse of Keith Ray.

Violetta said, ‘She ran back inside,’ as King dropped down again.

‘Fuck.’

‘Better than standing out there in the open.’

‘True.’

‘You lay suppressive fire,’ she said. ‘I’ll make a run for—’

Something snagged in King’s short-term memory. An unusual glitch in what he’d glimpsed. He thought it over, then decided he needed a double-take. He inched back into view, his skull creeping over the top of the hood.

A shot cracked past.

He didn’t flinch.

The shooter needed uncanny accuracy he didn’t possess if he wanted to blow the top of King’s head off. King only stayed there for a full second anyway. Then he dropped back down, his suspicions confirmed.

More shots blasted the SUV.

Violetta said, ‘What are you doing?’

King held up a finger. ‘Wait.’

Three.

Two.

One.

The gunfire ceased.

55

Slater perched on the narrow roof of the ground floor’s awning.

He was practically indistinguishable from the wall behind him in his dark combat gear.

With three dead men in his wake, he’d broken into a sprint when the gunfire flared up. He’d kept the MP5 on his back and the Ka-Bar at his thigh so he had both hands free. It was only twenty feet down the side of the lot to the lip of the awning. He’d identified the window where most of the bullets were coming from, used his considerable athleticism to leap up and snatch hold of the rusting metal, and heaved and strained and vaulted up onto the lip.

From his vantage point he saw Alexis run for her life in the wrong direction. He didn’t blame her. The SUV was at least fifty feet from the warehouse, and she was closer to the front door. She’d recognised she needed to get the hell out of Dodge and disappeared under the awning, failing to spot him crouched above her. Then there was commotion by the SUV, and he’d looked over to see what was unmistakably Gloria Kerr sprinting away across the road.

He’d shrugged the MP5 off his back, taken aim down the sights, and touched a finger to the trigger when Violetta’s muffled, ‘No!’ drifted through the silence between bursts of gunfire.

He’d refrained.

She clearly had a better plan.

Then he’d remembered how close the shooter’s bullets had come to shredding Alexis.

He saw red, and crept along the creaking awning toward the window frame.

Six feet from the sill he looked out and made eye contact with King above the hood of the SUV.

He nodded, quiet and slow.

King disappeared back behind cover.

A gun barrel protruded from the window, so close he could almost reach out and touch it. He heard the laboured breathing of the shooter, the flood of adrenaline coaxing him onward. He pumped more rounds at the car.

Slater inched closer.

Saw a gritty face with clenched teeth, wet with perspiration. He was small and thin but he fired the weapon with practiced expertise.

Bad luck, Slater thought.

He swung into view like an oversized bat and seized hold of the gun barrel. It was scorching hot, but the combat glove prevented any burns. Slater wrenched the rifle out of the shooter’s hands like plucking a toy off a disobedient child and hurled it down into no-man’s-land. The guy made to spill away from the window, back into the safety of the darkened room, but Slater seized him by the collar.

Dragged him forward, smashed his face into the wooden sill.

The guy bounced up off the window frame with a freshly broken nose and a freshly bruised jaw.

Slater brought his face down three more times into the sill — bang-bang-bang — and then heaved his unconscious body out through the opening.

The guy sailed down fifteen feet and hit the dirt on his back, bouncing his skull off the ground.

It brought him back to consciousness.

Maybe only temporarily, because there was no way he didn’t have significant brain damage, but that didn’t matter.

Because King vaulted back over the hood of the SUV and shot the guy twice in the chest.

Slater made a mistake.

He watched it happen instead of covering his six.

Sudden rapid movement in the room he’d dragged the shooter from. Slater sidestepped out of view but a bullet came ripping out through the open window all the same. It came devilishly close — it didn’t hit, but it spooked him. He had his MP5 in hand before anyone could blink, but he wasn’t paying attention to his footing. Still on a partial retreat, he put his foot down and found thin air.

He only managed to think, Fuck, before he slipped off the awning.

It wouldn’t have been an issue if he didn’t have the sub-machine gun in hand.

One part of his brain said, Drop the gun. Land safe.

Another part said, Keep it. Risk it.

He couldn’t decide.

Time passes fast.

He hit the dirt on his back, keeping the MP5 in his grip, aiming it up at the awning