Maybe they could wait inside the main station, which had more seating and weak air conditioning. It was better than?—
Someone slammed into Branson so hard that his knees buckled, and he went crashing to the wooden platform. He yelped as his left knee slammed into the ground and his palms scraped against the rough surface. A series of bizarre, loud pops rose over the shrieks and screams of people all around him, and the noise made his ears ring.
What the fuck is happening?
Someone screamed they were security and to stay down. Someone else (was that Quillen?) yelled he was a constable. Close by, Branson heard Jeuel wheezing his name, asking what was going on. Branson wanted to know the answer to that, too, but his lizard brain said to stay down until told otherwise. Except…
“Tarius?” The faint scent of Tarius’s cologne told him his husband was nearby, probably the heavy body still pressing him to the ground. Branson blinked hard, surprised his eyes had been shut so tight that he momentarily saw black spots in front of him. “Tar?”
“Here,” Tarius rasped near his ear. “What’s—hey!”
The weight was gone, and before Branson could sit up, someone was yanking him violently to his feet. His sore knee almost gave out, but then Tarius was supporting him, practically dragging him out of the sun and toward the main building.
“Jeuel!” Branson shouted, head whipping around to find—there. Jeuel was directly behind him, head ducked low like he was avoiding hitting it on something. Branson reached back and grabbed his hand, and their trio exploded inside the cooler building.
Trio. That was wrong. Where was Corinth?
He didn’t have time to question it, because a white-bearded man in a uniform directed them toward a wall with no windows where other people were already huddling, many on their mobiles. Had there been some sort of accident?
Then he heard someone very clearly say “three gunshots” and his spine snapped straight. He reached out, grabbing Jeuel by the shoulder with his left hand and Tarius’s shirt with his right. A wet shirt. Branson’s stomach hit the floor as he looked at Tarius for the first time since this insanity began. His light blue shirt had a red splotch on it, over his ribs.
“Fuck!” Panic turned Branson’s insides to ice, and he pawed at that red spot, more alarmed when his own fingers stained red. “Tarius, you’re bleeding!”
No, no, no, this isn’t happening, Tarius is not shot!
“What?” Tarius coughed hard and looked down at his abdomen.
“Oh goddess, don’t cough, that can’t be good.” Branson yanked at Tarius’s shirt, desperate to see how bad it was. They had to stanch the bleeding before it got worse!
Tarius grabbed his pawing hands and shoved them away so he could lift the hem of his shirt. “Stop, I’m not shot. I’m not—that’s not my blood.”
“You’re not?” Pale skin, no holes, no gushing blood. “Jeuel?”
“I’m not hurt,” Jeuel said.
They weren’t hurt. Branson sucked in a ragged, relieved breath, his lungs aching like he’d been holding it for hours. He wrapped his right hand around the back of Tarius’s neck and pulled him forward so their foreheads touched, and he inhaled his hot breath, which smelled like menthol and orange juice.
Oh, thank goddess, I can’t lose him.
“We’re okay,” Tarius said. “We’re okay.”
“Yeah, we are.” Branson kissed him firmly, sealing that promise. They were okay. He didn’t think his heart could survive losing Tarius, not when Branson had barely been able to love him. “What the hell happened?”
Even though Branson had asked Tarius, the white-bearded man in uniform, who was still hovering uncomfortably close to them, spoke. “Someone took a few shots at you folks, but looks like our security guys got him. And that constable, too.”
That constable? Corinth? He wasn’t with them, so maybe…no. Corinth wasn’t in uniform. How would this guy know Corinth was a constable?
The fresh blood on Tarius’s shirt made his gut roll again, and Branson tried to stand. “Corinth! Is he okay?” He ignored Tarius trying to keep him down, the security guy ordering him to sit, and looked out the nearest window. Multiple men in uniforms, including Quillen, were surrounding two people who were sprawled on the platform. One was on his stomach and being handcuffed.
The other had someone kneeling beside him with a first aid kit.
“Goddess.” Shock flashed hot in his chest, and everything started happening too fast to process. Between security keeping their trio in a tight huddle and Constable Quillen finally coming to collect them, Branson parsed that a lone gunman had taken three shots at their group, and one had struck Corinth in theshoulder when he pushed Tarius into Branson, who helped drag Jeuel to the ground.
Then they all ended up back at the Sonora Provincial Hospital, this time in Emergency.
Corinth’s wound wasn’t life-threatening, but it needed to be cleaned and assessed. Branson, Tarius and Jeuel were taken to a private room and treated for various scrapes and bruises. Branson’s knee was swelling, so a nurse gave him an anti-inflammatory and a brace to wear home. When Quillen interviewed them, no one had anything useful to say. None of them had seen the shooter, only experienced the chaotic aftermath.
Quillen apologized over and over for allowing a call to distract him, for not being more watchful. The shooter was someone trying to prove himself to another rival family, one the constabulary was still investigating. This man’s arrest gave them an in, plus a lot of other things Branson didn’t care about, beyond Quillen’s reassurances that their identities would be as protected as possible.
