Nothing like some blame-shifting to take the edge off. Stuffing his phone back into his pocket, Jonah stared listlessly at the movie screen, a countdown clock running in the back of his mind.
If Cas wasn’t back in fifteen minutes, he’d go and hunt him down. They’d get this shit sorted and stop by Madigan’s. Then he’d take Cas to dinner. After that, the apartment, where he’d make sure Cas knew exactly what he thought about him. He’d spend all night doing it, too, until he hit on exactly the right combination of words and touch Cas needed, goddammit. No sarcasm, this time.
At nine minutes, the car’s windshield exploded.
Jonah flattened himself across the front seats, yanking the glove box open as shouts and screams erupted around him. He thrust the passenger door open and another shot immediately shattered the passenger window.
“Get down!” he shouted to the teens across from him. One guy had frozen like a fucking deer in the middle of a highway. His friend yanked him down, and Jonah had time for one relieved breath before another bullet hit the dash.
Flipping onto his back, he cursed at the ceiling and, after a quick bit of thinking, lurched upright and flung open the driver side door before twisting again and launching himself through the shattered windshield and down the hood of the car. Not the most graceful of exits.
He landed on the ground with a breathless thud and maneuvered into a crouch at the bumper near the front passenger tire, gun in hand. Fuck, he hadn’t had to abandon a car in at least a year, and he’d gotten kind of attached to the modest Honda Civic.
“Are you a cop?” one of the girls under the truck whispered loudly.
Jonah put his finger to his lips. “Undercover.”
She gestured. “You’re bleeding.”
Jonah’s hand rose to the side of his face reflexively. His jaw was on fire, and tacky with sweat or blood or some combo of both, but the skin was intact.
The side of his neck and earlobe were a different story, though, and Jonah wasn’t sure whether it was from a bullet or the windshield. Didn’t matter at the moment. He needed to find Cas.
Sirens wailed in the distance, and Jonah darted a gaze around before easing up a couple of inches to peer over the hood. He felt like a damn submarine periscope poking from the water, but the fact that no more shots were fired was encouraging.
He eased up another couple of inches, thighs burning, gun at the ready, but it was dark other than a few flood lights around the public restrooms and the cafe lights strung along the concession stand.
He inched along the passenger side carefully, then reached out and yanked the back door open for cover.
Nothing.
So, he stood up and broke into a run.
17
Caspian
Cas bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper. Why had he even brought it up? What was he thinking? Everything had been perfect. The movie, the popcorn, resting his head against Jonah’s bicep. It was everything his sixteen-year-old self had fantasized about. Why couldn’t he leave it at that? Cas clenched and unclenched his hands, a million ants crawling beneath his skin as he thought about Jonah’s words. Had he bought Cas’s fraudulent grin just before he’d walked away? Why did it feel like he was destined to live his life running away from Jonah? Why did it always feel like every time he left, his heart stayed behind, choosing to bleed and suffer in Jonah’s fist, over the protection and safety of Cas’s chest?
Cas rolled his eyes at his emo thoughts, his boots crunching gravel beneath his feet as he crossed the distance to the small concession stand. He was supposed to order black Twizzlers and a blue Icee. That’s how the contact would know him. It sounded melodramatic, like some old school black and white movie, but, at this point, he had a list of names that meant nothing to him and God only knew how many people who now wanted him dead.
About a hundred yards from the concession stand, with its cheery yellow paint and old fashioned letter board menu, Cas slowed his pace, scanning his surroundings, noting the two girls in the booth. Neither could have been more than fifteen at most. They laughed and giggled with a group of others their age, hanging out the pass-thru of the shack, unaware of any potential danger around them. It was then that he caught a glimpse of a guy in a brown suede jacket, sitting at a picnic table with an untouched hot dog in front of him as he scanned his surroundings.
Goosebumps erupted along Cas’s skin, awareness plinking alarm bells in his brain like the vibrations along a spider’s web. Only, in this case, Cas was pretty sure he wasn’t the spider. As if to prove his point, just as Cas took a step back, the man’s head jerked toward him, locking eyes. There was no missing the recognition that sparked in the man’s expression.
The man stood, and Cas had just enough time to see him pull something that glinted under the streetlamp above him.
Shots rang out, not from the man in front of him but from behind. Cas turned, ducking behind a pickup truck. The drive-in erupted in chaos, screams ringing out as people stampeded toward the concession stand. Was Jonah firing into a crowd of people? That didn’t seem right. Was there more than one shooter? There had to be. Cas stayed low, twisting between the cars, doubling back twice before attempting to find Jonah.
The sound of a shoe scraping over gravel just behind him sent Cas’s heart jackrabbiting against his ribcage. A hand covered his mouth. Another closed around his waist.
Cas brought his elbow back, freezing when he heard Jonah’s “oof.”
Jonah dropped his hands and gave Cas an exasperated look, jerking his head in the opposite direction. Cas was used to Jonah’s hand signals and his grumpy expression. He followed without question as Jonah peeked his head up, scanning the near empty lot, cars abandoned. Ten vehicles away, close to where Jonah had originally parked, Cas barely made out an outline of a person slowly moving between cars. He tapped Jonah on the shoulder and pointed. Jonah gave a single nod of acknowledgement.
In the front row, an ancient Monte Carlo Super Sport with a hideous custom paint job idled, doors open from when the passengers had fled from the gunfire. Jonah did his head pointing thing again and Cas wrinkled his nose at the car. Jonah gave him his ‘really, Cas?’ eyebrows. He huffed and shrugged, crawling into the car and closing the door as quietly as possible.
Cas didn’t know much about cars, but somebody had lovingly restored it. Too bad that somebody had horrible taste. The white leather interior was trimmed in lime green, and all the lights on the interior matched.
