I swallowed hard as I rose out of my chair. My gaze spun frantically around the field as I searched for an imminent threat. While my heart pounded out of my chest, I saw nothing out of the ordinary—just people laughing, talking, drinking, and eating. No one was arguing or fighting; no one had any weapons drawn. Realizing all seemed well, I exhaled the breath I had been holding. I brought my hand to my chest and rubbed my shirt over where my heart still beat erratically. Maybe it was all just a false alarm. Maybe what had gone down with Eddy had made me paranoid, which was the last fucking thing I needed.
“You okay?” Rev asked.
When I looked over my shoulder, his expression was grave. He had seen firsthand when I got the heebie-jeebies, as he and Deacon called them. “Just a false alarm.”
But when I turned to sit back down, the sound of tires screeching caused me to freeze. I jerked my gaze from the people laughing and talking in the crowd to the hillside. When a black-paneled van crested the top of the hill, my stomach lurched into my throat. “Get down! Get down!” I screamed.
Just as the words left my lips, the sound of machine-gun fire echoed through the air. I didn’t stop to think about Deacon and Rev—I knew they could take care of themselves. Instead, I searched through the crowd for her. I could barely believe what I saw. Instead of falling to the ground to protect herself like some of the others around me, she was shoving children under the food tables. A scream tore from my throat when the man helping her was hit in the back and fell to the ground.
Breaking into a sprint, I closed the short gap between us. I had no other thought in my mind but making sure she was safe, even if it meant sacrificing my life for hers. I dove on top of her, toppling her to the ground. As the gunfire and screams continued going off around me, I shielded her with my body.
She once again surprised the hell out of me by pounding her fists against my chest. “Let me up! We need ambulances in here. Stat!”
I figured she was going into shock from the way she was talking. I hoped and prayed that it wasn’t from her being shot and losing blood. I had taken her down so fast I hadn’t had the chance to see if she had been wounded.
When the gunfire finally ceased and the tires squealed off, I slowly rose to look at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. But I need—”
Before I could think better of it, I leaned down and bestowed a quick kiss on the top of her forehead. When I pulled back, she stared at me wide-eyed. “Sorry. I’m just so fucking glad you weren’t shot or hurt.”
Unblinking and unmoving, Sam continued staring at me. “You saved me.”
“Yeah.”
Sam started to say something else, and then her eyes went wide. “Marley!” she cried. After she pushed me off her, she jumped to her feet. Before I could grab her, she became lost in the chaos around me.
As I stood there frozen like a statue, it felt as if I had been dropped into the middle of a war zone. In that moment, I knew I would never forget the sounds of the screams. They would haunt me and my sleep for years to come. They were screams of agonized pain, screams of crippling fear, and screams of life-altering grief. Over the years, I had been in a lot of fights and fought a lot of battles as one of the Raiders, but nothing compared to the full-scale carnage around me. I didn’t think there was a chapter that hadn’t lost somebody.
At my side, Deacon was on his cell phone talking to a 911 operator. Rev pushed ahead of us to go to a hysterical woman whose husband or boyfriend lay in a pool of blood. I don’t know how long I stood frozen as I surveyed the horror around me. Finally, I began to animate again.
Slowly, I put one foot in front of the other. It felt as if I were trudging through thick mud. Although I should have been searching for my fellow Raiders, I could think only of Samantha. While I continued walking, moments of relief came as I saw my brothers. Breakneck barked out orders to those around him to help some of the wounded. Kim and several of the women gathered a group of kids to take back to the motel. Boone limped along with his arm over Mac’s shoulder. When I met his gaze, he gave me a nod to let me know that while he might’ve been hit, he was okay.
One by one I saw each of my Raiders brothers, and I heaved a sigh of relief that besides a few minor gunshots, we hadn’t lost anyone.
Or so I thought.
At the far end of the clearing, I finally found Samantha crumpled on the ground. I broke into a run to get to her. But when I grew closer, I skidded to a stop. She wasn’t alone. She was huddled over Marley’s blood-soaked body. From where he had fallen, he had borne the brunt of the gunfire coming over the hill.
“Sam?” I questioned.
Her cries momentarily ceased. She jerked her head up from Marley’s chest to whirl around. Just as I would never forget those screams, I would never, ever forget the look of icy hatred that burned in her eyes. I didn’t have to ask her how Marley was. I knew right then and there that he was dead, and in Samantha’s eyes, I might as well have killed him myself.
EIGHT
SAMANTHA
Life changes in the blink of an eye. One minute you have the world resting precariously in the palm of your hand, and then the next you’re scrambling to pick up the shattered pieces of what once was. Although I had been forced to learn that lesson when I was just eight years old, nothing could have prepared me for when I had to experience it again. The wound of losing Gavin might have cut into my soul over scar tissue, but it did nothing to dull the excruciating pain. It was as fresh as if it were the first time I had to lose someone who meant the world to me.
No matter how hard I tried to push the memory away, the night’s agonizing events played on a macabre loop in my head.