I look at the nine-year-old in my arms. He’s crying—quiet, controlled tears that wreck me, like he’s already learned not to make too much noise when things go wrong.
“Hey.” I get my face level with his as the car bumps and veers back and forth wildly all over the road. “Listen to me, okay? There’s going to be some loud stuff for a little while. I need you to get down in the floorboards and stay down no matter what. Can you do that?”
Bruiser looks up at me with big eyes that ping back and forth, like he’s checking whether I’m worth trusting.
Something in my chest cracks.
“Yeah,” he says.
“Good. You’re doing so good.” I maneuver him into the footwell and pull the ballistic blanket over him Dimitri stocked in the backseat. I feel Bruiser’s small hand close around my wrist. He holds on, and I let him.
One, two, three, four. One-two-three-four-
The patterns keep refusing to hold. I know therapists have told me numbers can’t actually affect change, but somewhere deep down nothing could convince me otherwise.
Now, though, as this small human trusts me so completely, I get it, I think. What every parent probably understands at some point.
It’s always an illusion thatanything’sever under control.
We think if we can manage the small things, the steps, and the silverware alignment and the locks flipped in sequence, then maybe the big things will stay within bounds too.
But it’s all absolutely fucking useless when a tiny body, most vulnerable to a bullet, is folded into a floorboard under a ballistic blanket with their hand gripping your wrist likeyou’rethe magic rabbit’s foot.
I lean down. “Just keep breathing. I’ve got you. You hear me, buddy? I’ve got you.”
“Are these bad guys like my dad?” comes his voice, so small.
There are a thousand things I could say. Later. When we’re safe. When I’ve processed the bomb that just went off in the shower and have figured out what I feel about the fact that he’s called that asshole Z his father every day of his life instead of?—
“We’ll talk about everything when we get where we’re going,” I say. “Right now I just need you to stay down.”
He finally lets go of my wrist just as Harper takes a corner hard enough to make the tires screech. I straighten up and look through the narrow back window to track the motorcycles. There are three still on us.
I run the math with the part of my brain that isn’t actively dissolving—there were four bikes originally. We’ve lost one, but there are still three on us. There’s ten rounds in the Glock Isaak’s man put in the glove box, which Harper grabs and hands to me. Not divisible by three without a remainder, and the remainder is the problem, the remainder is always the problem?—
“CALEB.” Harper’s voice cuts through everything like a signal breaking static. “I need you here. With me. Withhim.”
I look up and meet her eyes in the rearview mirror.
There’s fear in her face and something else alongside it—something that looks like absolute certainty that I can do this, which is a faith I have not fully earned and certainly don’t deserve. But I can’t afford to disappoint her right now. So I won’t.
“I’m here,” I say, and put my hand on my son through the blanket. “I’ve got him. Just drive.”
She does.
We move through the next twelve minutes as a unit. She didn’t exactly have time to plug her phone into the GPS, so she drives and I direct her with the heavy weight of a Glock in one hand and my other hand on Bruiser over the blanket, anchoring me every time the numbers scatter.
One bike goes down at Harper’s next sharp swerve—she clips it so precisely it barely registers as an act of violence—it’s more just physics applied with intent.
When the next bike comes close and clips off several more rounds that crack into the bulletproof windows, I can’t help flinching. Jesus, this has got to be terrifying for the kid.
I lift the Glock. I’ve only ever fired guns off at Domhnall’s fancy club, but it’s going to have to be good enough.
When the MC guy is reloading, I roll down the window and Harper keeps the car steady enough for me to get a couple of shots off. I’m not sure if I hit them or just their motorcycle, but after unloading half the magazine, one of the bike’s engines explodes.
I hit the button to roll the window back up as the other guy gets hit by shrapnel and his bike veers off the road.
At the last second, the fourth bike reappears, right on our bumper.