He would shoot Enzo and wouldn’t miss at that range.
Almost without thinking, Charity pointed her gun at Schmitt’s chest. Enzo had told her once that she wasn’t a killer. Turned out, he was wrong.
She pulled the trigger. The blast echoed in the garage. Schmitt stumbled backward. This time he dropped his gun.
Enzo’s eyes went wide, and he stared at Charity. With anger? Revulsion? He thought less of her now. The look stunned her. He grabbed Schmitt’s gun from the ground. “Get in the car,” he yelled.
She ran, trembling, toward the car. Enzo had refused to shoot Schmitt, but she’d done it. Would he be angry at her for that? The man wasn’t dead, at least not yet. He lay on the ground,curling in on himself and groaning. Someone would find him. Someone must have heard the thunderously loud shots.
She climbed into the passenger side. Only then did she look around to check on the others. Her father stood several feet away, his face pale with shock. She wanted to tell him, “I didn’t have a choice.”
Blue picked up the car keys. “Who’s that?” she asked Enzo.
“My boss.” With a last look at the man, Enzo headed to the car. “Or at least he used to be. I’m pretty sure this counts as a resignation.”
Blue frowned and opened the car’s back door. “You’re a police officer?”
“There are worse things to be.”
Blue slipped inside and turned to Charity. “Did you know this guy is a police officer?”
“Yes,” she hissed.
Why wasn’t everyone being faster? They needed to leave. Her father neared the car, not walking, she realized, staggering. He dragged one leg. A spot of blood had formed through his pants on his upper leg.
Enzo’s boss hadn’t missed after all. He’d shot her father.
31
“Help him!” Charity called to Enzo. She was trying to open her door, but he was closer.
Enzo jumped out of the car and rushed to her father. Enzo half-carried, half-pushed him into the back seat next to Blue. Her father slumped there, breathing fast. The blood spot bloomed on his pants, dark and growing.
The door shut, and the car started moving. Charity didn’t see any of it. She’d twisted to see her father. “How bad is it?”
“Not bad,” he said.
Liar. Pain filled his voice. “Switch places with me,” she told Blue and climbed into the back seat.
Charity hoped the wound was superficial. It had to be, didn’t it? The visions would have warned him otherwise. “Blue, search the front of the car for a first aid kit.”
Charity moved her father’s clothing to get a better look. The bullet had left a small hole in his leg below his hip, but the amount of blood meant the wound was serious. Alarm pulsed through her. “He needs a doctor.”
“We don’t have time for that,” her father said. “We’ve got to leave the city. Your mother will know what to do.”
“We don’t know where Mom is,” Charity said.
“She should be at Whitney Farms.” The first stop on the way to New Salem.
Charity made herself think like a nurse. She turned her father on his side to check for an exit wound. There wasn’t one, which meant the bullet would have to be surgically removed. In the meantime, she’d elevate his leg, bandage the wound, and apply pressure.
They’d just come from a laundry room. Why hadn’t the visions shown her father that he would need a clean towel?
She didn’t like the answer that came to her: because taking a towel wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome. Charity refused to let him die.
Her father shut his eyes and gritted his teeth. She needed to stem the bleeding. The only thing available to apply pressure to the wound was a shirt. Enzo was too busy driving to take off his suit jacket, and it probably wouldn’t make good bandaging anyway.
She pulled off her ruffled blue shirt and wrapped it around his leg the best she could. Any other time she would have been mortified to be in a sports bra in a car with other people. It hardly registered in her mind.