Shiver

clenched. His muscles bunched. Adrenaline shot through his veins like a speedball rush.
    The trunk rose at a measured, majestic pace that reflected the luxury brand of the car rather than the urgency of the situation. In the space of about a heartbeat, as fresh air wafted in and a swath of starry night sky was revealed, Danny registered that they were outside rather than in a building, that the balmy summer’s night now smelled of garbage and the river, that Torres and Thug Two were approximately where he had pictured them, and, as the moonlight turned its snub-nosed black barrel to silver, that at least one gun was pointed right at his face.
    Game on.
    Gathering himself, he prepared to spring. The distinctive sound of a weapon being cocked behind him—behind him!—caused his eyes to widen. It was the only warning he got.

CHAPTER THREE
     

     
    A s the Beemer’s trunk lid rose, Sam’s heart jackhammered—until it didn’t. Her pulse accelerated to the point where it was all she could hear—until suddenly it slowed way down.
    By the time she inhaled her first lungful of fresh air, beheld the first sliver of starry sky, heard the sudden, unmuffled onslaught of night sounds, every bit of fear she was experiencing had vanished, swept away in a flood of icy resolve.
    She wasn’t dying tonight. No way, no how.
    If she died, Tyler had no one.
    That was all the motivation Sam needed. Whatever it took, she was going to survive for her boy. When the lid rose high enough to reveal two men silhouetted against the night sky, she had her own gun out and ready, down close to her chest, pointing out. One of the men was aiming a gun into the trunk: with moonlight glinting on its barrel, she saw it as plainly as if it were high noon outside. Lying awkwardly on her side, she angled her weapon more accurately, aiming up through the small spaceshe had managed to create between her body and the muscular back of the man wedged into the trunk with her. The Smith & Wesson was heavy and warm from her body heat. Her palms were sweaty, which made its metal grip slippery, which made her tighten her hold on it. During the heartbeat it took her to reconfirm the deadly reality of the mess she was in—oh, yeah, it was bad—her stomach cramped. She ignored it, just like she was ignoring the painful throbbing in her head where one of these bozos had clobbered her, just like she was ignoring the fear that would have swamped her if she’d let it. If this was a fight for her life—and Tyler’s—then hell, yeah, she was going to fight. Gritting her teeth, she targeted just above the gleaming black barrel of the bastard’s gun. It was taking careful aim—at her, not her companion. Like he’d said, they were clearly going to kill her first. Tamping down hard on a rising wave of terror that turned her blood to ice and made her pulse race and her heart pound, she fired with grim determination, pulling the trigger multiple times, shooting at both dark shadows, blasting away for her life—and Tyler’s—in big explosions of sound.
    “Holy shit!” the man in the trunk with her yelped, his arms flying up to shield his head, as her targets screamed, reeled away, then dropped from sight with heavy, crunching thuds. Clambering up onto her knees, looking wildly around for any possible new threat, Sam ignored her companion as he rolled onto his back to stare up at her. He said something else to her that didn’t register. Everything—the bang of the gunshots, the sulfuric smell of the recently fired gun, the screams and sounds of bodies dropping, and the terrible reality of the deadly violence that had suddenly forced its way into her life—had such a nightmarish quality to it that she was having a hard time processing that this is real.
    Don’t think. Just get out of here.
    Ears ringing from the noise of the gunshots, mind surprisingly detached in the midst of her body’s knee-jerk panic, she sprang out of that trunk like a gazelle—or a mother whose kid was in danger, which was what she was.
    The men she’d shot were down, dark shapes sprawled on the silvery gravel near the back of the car, she saw as her feet hit the ground. One of them writhed and moaned. The other lay still. For a second, as the gun hung heavy in her hand, she stared at them. The one looked dead; the other clearly wasn’t, but neither seemed capable of posing any kind of a threat. Heart pounding, breathing way too fast, she forced herself to look away from them and