Brain Storm, Cat Gilbert [read books for money TXT] 📗

as I stepped through the doorway, and skimmed along the wall toward the living room, where Trinity was waiting, crouched against the wall next to the doorway. A body lay on the floor blocking the passageway, the dark stain of blood spreading on the floor a real good indicator that Trinity’s taser hadn’t taken him down. Mac brushed past me and quickly stopped to check the body, shaking his head as he took cover behind the wall. It wasn’t Jonas. They had gotten here before us. Question was, how many had they sent.

We had moved fast, coming through the house at a good speed. There had been no sound from Jonas since we’d entered and the house was eerily quiet now. I caught Mac’s eye, and we rounded the doorway into the living room only to find Jonas standing at the wrong end of a shotgun, hands in the air.

“Gram!” hissed Trinity from behind me. “Put that gun down.” Mama D had no intention of doing any such thing. Instead, she poked him a good one in the stomach with it, driving him back a step.

“Mama D,” I whispered, frantic that she might shoot him, worried that others were coming who were a much bigger threat. “That’s Jonas. You remember him. We’re here to help you.”

“I know who he is,” Mama D informed me, clearly insulted. “Why’d you think I didn’t shoot him like that other one?”

“Mama D,” I tried again, seeing porch lights turn on at the neighbor’s house through the living room window while trying to ignore what she’d just told me. “We don’t have much time. People are after us, and we have to go. We’ve come to get you.” Mac edged past them and headed up the stairs to check the rest of the house. Time was running out as we heard sirens in the distance.

“Gram, we have to go. Now.” Trinity was waving her taser around, and I was afraid she might fire it off by accident and Mama D still hadn’t lowered the shotgun.

Mac came back down the stairs in a rush and holstered his gun. “We’re going now.” He took the shotgun right out of Mama D’s hands and tossed it to Jonas, who quickly disappeared toward the back of the house. “Mama D,” he said, guiding the little woman toward the kitchen, “it’s not safe here anymore. You’re coming with us. Is there anything you have to take with you?”

“Well, I would like my medicines and my pictures,” she told him.

Trinity and I went tearing through the house. As I snatched up Mama D’s framed photos, I could hear Trinity pounding up the stairs after the medicine. I grabbed the afghan Mama D had made for the sofa and threw the frames into it, hoping to muffle the noise and make them easier to carry. I was bent over, grabbing the ends together, when I realized I wasn’t alone.

“Stop right where you are!” An angry voice demanded. It was Mr. Lang. Of the bird feeder yard, we’d just been crawling through. He’d made good time. Really good time. I froze where I was, picture frame in my hand, knowing a gun came with that voice, and he probably wouldn’t need much of an excuse to fire it. It was dark, and I was sure he had no idea it was me stealing the family photos. I could hear the nearing sirens, and knew he’d managed to call 911 before heading over. Or maybe he’d had Mrs. Lang call it in. Whatever the case, we didn’t have time for this. There wasn’t much I could do about it, though. I wasn’t about to shoot him. He was a friend, after all, and in other circumstances, I would have been happy to have seen him show up. If I turned around, I knew he would recognize me and lower the gun, but I didn’t really want him telling the police and whoever else showed up asking, that I’d been here. And then there was the dead man lying a few feet away. That would be hard to explain.

I was quickly running out of options when I caught movement from the corner of my eye and threw myself on the floor just as Trinity took aim and fired the taser. She caught Mr. Lang right between the shoulder blades, and he went down like a house of bricks, the shotgun he’d been holding skittering across the floor, slamming to a stop against the wall. The noise brought Jonas running back into the room, but the sight of Mr. Lang on the floor stopped him in his tracks.

“Neighbor,” I managed to hiss out as I checked the poor man’s pulse. He was out cold, but he was alive. Jonas reached down and in one fluid movement, he had Mr. Lang up and over his shoulder. He headed toward the back door, motioning for us to follow. I grabbed up my makeshift sack of photos and snagged the shotgun as we ran through the kitchen and out into the yard. Jonas stopped to lay the stunned man down in the yard a safe distance from the house, and I dropped the shotgun down next to him. Then watched as Jonas loped back to the house, stopping to pick up the bottle of lighter fluid Mama D kept by the outdoor grill. My heart sank when I realized he was going to borrow a page from earlier in the evening and torch the house. It was a good plan and would hopefully buy us some time, but I knew what the house had meant to Trinity. This was going to kill her. I turned to see if she was still nearby, but she had run through the yard, following Mac and Mama D. Hopefully we would be away before the flames took hold and she wouldn’t have to see it.

I waited for Jonas while he went about his business. Saw the match flare to life and arch into the kitchen as he tossed it through the open door. It took a second for the fire to catch, and Jonas waited, just to make sure. Then we were running, putting distance between us, the house and body inside, keeping to the backyards and the bushes as the police cars came screaming down the street. We ran for the safety of the van, which sat idling safely where we had left it. Trinity had the back sliding door open, waving us on. We threw ourselves inside, and Mac was off and moving before Trinity had the door closed. Gasping for air, we kept our heads down, as Mac wove slowly down the street, attempting to blend in with the neighborhood and the people who were coming out of their houses to see what the commotion was all about.

Finally reaching a main road, Mac turned onto it and put the pedal down. I glanced out the window at the lights and store fronts speeding past, waiting for the sound of sirens to fall in behind us in pursuit, but with each second that went by in silence, I felt increasingly confident that we had gotten in and out without attracting notice.

“Where now?” I asked as Jonas made his way up front to the empty passenger seat. Trinity had Mama D belted into a back seat, and she was sitting quietly, arms wrapped around the purse she had somehow managed to grab on the way out. She didn’t seem at all phased for someone who had just killed a man and almost been kidnapped. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Trinity and got a shoulder shrug back in response.

“Back to the cabin,” Mac answered. “We should be safe there for a little while, but they’ll be looking for us now. If they didn’t know you were alive before, they certainly do now.” Glancing in the rearview mirror, his eyes met mine, and he gave me a head bob, motioning to Mama D.

I saw his point but was pretty certain they had figured out we were still alive before we ever arrived at Mama D’s. I had to assume the body on the floor belonged to one of the guys who was after us. It would have been too much of a coincidence to have Mama D’s house broken into the same night we were attacked. They either were covering all their bases or already knew that the bodies in my condo didn’t belong to us. They were moving quickly, and we were lucky to have gotten there when we did. Luckier still that Mama D had a gun and knew how to use it. They had beaten us to the punch this time. My stomach clenched into knots when I thought about how different things could have turned out.

Mac exited off 430 onto Chenal Parkway and was now turning onto Kanis, heading out of town. He was taking a different route back to the cabin. One I realized, that would have us coming up on the backside of the hill if he kept to this course. The fact that the cabin should be safe didn’t mean it was. I was glad he was thinking ahead. As for me, my mind seemed to be skipping from one thing to another without much regard for coherent thought.

“Taylor.” Jonas reached back, shaking my knee to get my attention. I don’t know how long he’d been talking to me, but looking around now, I could see Mac had pulled off the road into some bushes. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said trying to shake off the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm me. The adrenaline from earlier was long gone, and I was feeling the effects of what had been a really long evening in every ounce of my being. “Yeah, I’m fine. Where are we?”

“The cabin’s around the hill,” Mac said, putting the van into park. “Jonas and I are going around to take a look and make sure everything is clear. You need to come up front.”

I managed to unbuckle my seat belt and climb through to the driver’s seat as Mac opened the door and got out.

“If we’re not back in 5 minutes, Taylor, leave. Head out of state, and hide. Don’t use your real names and don’t use your credit cards. There’s cash in the glove box.”

I stared at him, as the full impact of what he was saying hit me, but before I could object he was gone, melting in the black of the hillside.

“How will they find us, if we leave?” Trinity asked from the backseat.

Looking up, I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror and didn’t say anything. She knew the answer already and was just voicing the fear we all felt. If they weren’t back in five minutes, they weren’t coming back. Ever.

Dear God in heaven, help us, I prayed. I could