KnockOut

remember me, Victor? I’m the guy you trussed up on your bedroom floor, the guy you wanted to blow to pieces? Do you even remember that mother and father you and Lissy shot down in their kitchen in Alexandria? You shot two people for a damned car. How many other people have you and Lissy shot for no good reason? You’re both rabid, Victor. You’re both crazy.”
    Victor said, “I’m not crazy.”
    “Yeah, right,” Cully said. “You going to blame it all on that teenager you’ve been screwing since she was thirteen?”
    Sherlock lightly laid her palm against Cully’s shoulder, felt him shaking with rage.
    “I never screwed Lissy! Do you hear me, it wasn’t ever like that She needed me, only me. She always said she knew me, from the moment I came, she said she knew me to my soul. You’re trying to kill her! You want to see her dead!”
    Cully kicked Victor in the side, but Victor didn’t even appear to notice. He shouted down at him, “Time for you to listen, punk. You’re lucky you didn’t kill Bernie or I’d kill you myself.”
    Sherlock saw that Cully was still shaking with rage and she said calmly, “But since you didn’t kill Bernie or kill Agent Savich, Cully and I are going to take you to a hospital. We’ll even help you, since your ankle’s shot to pieces. You want a handkerchief to wipe the blood off your face? Ah, here’s Bernie. We’ve got him, Bernie, no problem.”
    Bernie opened his mouth, but Cully overrode him. “I just wish I’d been the one to find you first,” Cully said, and kicked Victor again. “I bet Bernie wishes the same thing. Then you wouldn’t have gotten off with this puny foot wound.”
    Victor looked at them through pain-dead eyes. “You should be dead. All of you would be dead if it wasn’t for that girl Autumn. Who is Autumn? There wasn’t any little girl up there.”
    “You’re right, Autumn wasn’t nearby,” Sherlock said. “But it doesn’t really concern you now, Victor.”
    Victor tried to rise, hissed in pain, and fell on his side. They heard him whisper, “Lissy wanted to go to Montana. I guess that’s not going to happen now.”
    Cully and Bernie lifted him, each of them with a shoulder under his arms. He was crying and moaning, and he left a trail of blood on the rocky ground. Sherlock didn’t care what he said; she was too worried about Dillon. Lissy could still be out there, and it was Sherlock’s fault. She could have taken her down, should have, but she couldn’t bring herself to shoot that young girl in the back. She’d let her focus slip for that instant of time, and Lissy had been so fast, moved in a blur, all of it unexpected, and then Sherlock had fired at her, but only a wound, maybe not even a bad one. Dillon could be dead because— Sherlock shook her head. No excuses. She’d screwed up royally, put all of them in danger. She hadn’t done her job.
    If it hadn’t been for Autumn, Victor would have killed Dillon. “Autumn,” she whispered, vaguely aware that Victor was cursing and crying, both together, “thank you for our lives.”
    “Sherlock, you guys all right?”
    Savich came limping through the trees. He was almost whole. Good enough. She gave him a huge smile.
    Victor stopped cold. He yelled, “Where’s Lissy? What did you do to Lissy?”
    Savich looked at the young man’s ravaged face, at the soul-eating fear in his eyes. He said, “She’s gone, Victor.”
    Victor raised his face to the darkening sky. “Lissy! Oh, God, Lissy, you can’t die, you can’t!” He wept like a lost soul from hell.

73
    PEAS RIDGE, GEORGIA
    Whistler looked down at her, and Ethan took his chance. He threw himself at Whistler, hurled him against the wall. His gun went skidding across the floor.
    “Autumn, untie me!”
    Autumn fell to her knees beside her mother and began to work at the knots. Joanna had to watch Ethan and Whistler trade blows until finally she pulled free. Joanna staggered to her feet and pushed Autumn behind her. She wanted to help Ethan, but she’d seen him fight. He didn’t need her.
    Whistler was stronger than Ethan had thought, but he had no real chance. Ethan had rage on his side, rage so deep it resounded in the most primitive part of him. He wanted blood. He staggered Whistler with a kick to his chest and managed to grab his head between his hands. He pounded his head against the white wall. He didn’t stop even when he saw smudges of red against the stark white, heard Whistler moaning.
    “No!”