Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (ebook reader computer .txt) 📕

cover. If he was distracted, I might be able to get to him and buy Trinity enough time to get out the door.

I looked back over my shoulder and reached out for a knife. I saw the handle wobble and closed my eyes. God help me, I prayed as I grabbed hold of one of the knives and threw it where I hoped Brown would be standing. I watched as it sailed through the opening and lunged to my feet, ready to follow. The sound of it striking the fireplace, followed by Brown’s laugh stopped me in my tracks. Trinity had started moving for the door as soon as the knife flew, but I motioned her quickly to stop and go back. I had clearly missed.

“Very good, Taylor. That was actually quite close but not close enough." I felt him move closer and knew he was nearly on top of us. This had gone on long enough. I motioned for Trinity to head out the back as I made my decision.

I stood up and stepped out into the entry, coming face to face with the barrel of Mac’s gun in Brown’s hand. I looked up into Brown’s face and knew he had made a critical mistake. He had Mac’s gun. A nice, deadly, semi-automatic that I was quite familiar with. That meant the bullets were in a clip. It fed the bullets into the gun, one after another, so you didn’t have to stop and load them by hand. You could carry multiple clips and have a nice supply of ammo. You just had to press the release button and watch the clip drop away and ram another one up into place.

Brown’s problem was two-fold. He didn’t have an extra clip, and I knew where the button was. I reached out mentally and pressed down on the release, hearing the click as the clip disengaged and dropped from the gun.

The shocked look on Brown’s face was priceless. I grabbed the gun and jammed it upward as he fired, the bullet missing me by inches. I twisted the gun from his hand and gave him a knee in the groin. He bent forward, doubled over in pain and I brought the same knee up into his face, breaking his nose and spraying blood over the wall. I brought the gun around, clubbing him in the side of the head with it and he went down like a ton of bricks. He’d barely hit the floor when I let loose with a hard kick to his kidneys, making sure he was down.

I was out of breath by the time I’d finished with him, but I dropped to my knees to grab the clip and ram it back into place, chambering a round in one fluid motion. He wasn’t moving, but I was ready for him, just in case. I staggered back to my feet and put some distance between us, keeping the gun trained on him. Trinity came up beside me, still holding her frying pan and I heard her gasp. Following the stricken look in her eyes past Brown, I saw Jonas’ body on the floor by the fireplace, his face bloody and a red pool staining the rug beneath him. He wasn’t moving. For all I knew Brown had killed him. My thoughts flew to Mac. He was out there somewhere, and I needed to find him, but I had to take care of Brown first.

“Candice, get the duct tape,” I ordered. She looked at me in confusion, tears streaming down her face. “Candice! Duct tape. Now!” She snapped out of it and ran back into the kitchen, jerking open drawers in rapid secession, searching for the tape.

I heard a noise from the floor and looked down to see Brown had come to and was trying to get to his feet. I kept the gun on him as he got to his knees and struggled to stand and motioned him to move into the kitchen intending to tape him to one of the sturdy kitchen chairs for safe keeping.

“Well done, Taylor.” He grimaced as he took a breath, and I sincerely hoped I had broken some of his ribs during our fight as well as his nose “You’re good, but once again. Not quite good enough.”

He turned to face me, a smile on his face and suddenly I was flying backward through the air. I slammed onto the floor, sliding into the stairs behind me so hard the gun was torn from my hand, and I watched helplessly as it went spinning across the floor back towards Brown. I was momentarily stunned as realization seeped into my rattled brain. Brown had just thrown me across the room without ever laying a hand on me. Dazed, I scrambled to my feet, as he picked up the gun, and turned it on Trinity.

“No!” I screamed, desperate to somehow stop him. My gaze was focused on Trinity, and I saw her eyes widen in fear, fixed somewhere behind me.

“Say, goodbye,” he said, and I watched in horror as his finger tightened on the trigger. In a distant part of my mind, I heard the sound of a shell being racked into place behind me and managed to fling myself flat on the floor just as Mama D cut loose with the shotgun.

The impact took him off his feet and pinned him to the wall, where he hung for a minute before sliding onto the floor. At such close range, there wasn’t a chance he’d survive, but I scrambled across the floor for the gun he had dropped, just in case, and felt immediately better once I had it safe in my hand. My ears were ringing, and I was covered in blood. I looked at Brown and from my vantage point on the floor, he seemed dead enough. I rolled over and saw Mama D had dropped the gun and collapsed in a heap on the stairs, obviously in shock. I tried to get to my feet without much success and then suddenly, Trinity was there helping me up. She was patting me down and hugging me, and I finally figured out that she thought Mama D had shot me too. I looked behind me at holes in the wall, the grouping still tight, just a couple of feet above where my head had been. It had been close. Too close.

Then again, I thought as I struggled to my feet and made my way to the stairs, Mama D was pretty good with that shotgun. I picked it up, securing Mac’s gun in my waistband, as Trinity checked on Mama D. She had a bad case of the shakes, but that was to be expected. I wasn’t too steady myself. I motioned for Trinity to stay with her while I went to check on Jonas.

He hadn’t moved. There was blood on his face and on the floor beneath him. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or not, couldn’t see him breathing. I knelt down and checked for a pulse. It was there. Surprisingly strong and steady. I quickly checked him over, and the only damage was a large gash on his head which accounted for all the blood and a huge bump on his head that accounted for him being out cold. He probably had a concussion, but at least the swelling was on the outside and not inside his brain. That was something, at least. I rolled him over into a recovery position, made sure his airway was clear and went back to check on Trinity and Mama D, grabbing a blanket off the sofa to cover Brown’s body on my way. Trinity had moved Mama D into a kitchen chair with her back to the carnage. She looked up in question when I came in.

“He’s alive,” I assured her. She breathed out a sigh of relief, and I knew she’d been terrified that Brown had killed him. I’d been worried too, and I was still worried about Mac, who I had yet to find. “He got hit on the head and is out cold. You may want to go throw some cold water on him. See if you can get him to come around.”

“Okay.” She was shaky but got to her feet in spite of it. “Where are you going?”

I handed her Mac’s gun and put the shotgun in easy reach on the kitchen counter. “I’m going upstairs to get my gun, and then I’m going to look for Mac. You work on Jonas and stay in the house.” I pointed at the gun in her hand. “Keep that with you. The safety’s off.”

I leaned down and gave Mama D a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She was still in shock and probably would be for a while. I had no idea when she’d managed to get the shotgun. Didn’t know if she’d found it here already, or taken it from our stash. What I did know was that this was the second time she killed a man, and that was something you never got over. She’d just saved all our bacon. It was a fact that dimmed in light of such a violent action, but it might help her be able to live with what had happened. She had done what she had to do, but that didn’t make me any less sorry that she’d had to do it. Not for the first time, the thought crossed my mind of how much better off they would all be if they’d never known me. They would be home, happy and safe. I had given them the choice, but that didn’t change the facts. This had happened because of me, and I had to find a way to live with it.

I headed quickly upstairs, giving the cabin a once over on my way up. By the time I reached my room, I was pretty certain Mac wasn’t in the house, which meant he was somewhere outside the cabin. I pulled my gun out of the drawer, slipping an extra clip inside my pocket. I figured that if Brown had help coming from the Agency, he would have waited to make his move until they were there, but I wasn’t positive. Maybe he had waited, and they had been outside taking care of Mac while Brown was busy with us inside, but there had been enough time and gunfire for them to come running if that was the case and no one had showed up.

In any event, I wanted to be ready in case I ran into some of his friends out there in the woods. I’d already nearly gotten everyone killed tonight underestimating Brown and leaving my gun behind. Once was more than enough.

When I came back down, Jonas was awake and sitting up in a kitchen chair. He might have been awake, but he wasn’t focusing yet and looked like he was going to pass out again at any second, so he was of no use.

“Keep watch,”