A gunshot cracks like thunder, the sound unmistakable, paralyzing me.
All hell breaks loose. Footsteps stampede across the ceiling, followed by shouts and screams that travel through the floorboards.
Everett’s up there.
I scramble to my feet and bound up the stairs two at a time. The basement door opens to chaos, people running down the hall and screaming, men charging in the other direction holding shotguns. I barrel toward the kitchen but am shoved by a giant leather-jacketed man with a gun running past. The impact throws me into the wall, making me bite my tongue, but I push off and keep going, streaking into the kitchen.
I spin in frantic circles. The kitchen’s been barricaded, tables shoved against the windows. Men are sweeping cash and weed into grocery bags, rushing past with guns held high, crouching by the windows. I can’t find Everett in this maelstrom of people.
Something shatters a window, and I scream as glass goes flying. The men start firing, each boom so loud my ears ring. The front door flingsopen, and men with crosses on their necks start to pour through—the country boys from up north.
I’m standing in the middle of a war, unable to move, panic locking my limbs.
“Ruth!”
Everett. I turn, relief flooding me until I realize he’s pointing over my shoulder.
I whip around just as a bald man with a crucifix under his ear levels a gun at me and pulls the trigger.
I’m struck by an incredible force that sends me tumbling to the linoleum. Time dilates: my ears ring, dulling the explosion of gunshots, my vision swimming so all I can make sense of is the pressure of another body lying across me.
“Ruth!” Ever shouts. He’s here, in my face, shaking me.
The world tilts. I can’t breathe with the wind knocked out of me.
Gunfire thunders rapid-fire. “We have to go.” Ever lifts me by the shoulders clean off the floor. That’s when I see the rip in his leather jacket, the crimson smear of blood.
Horror cuts through the haze. “You’re bleeding,” I rasp. “Ever, you’reshot.”
“Runnow.” He yanks me out of the kitchen, and as I turn, I see the man who fired at me reloading.
All reason flees. I drop Ever’s hand and together we race through a den, dodging people and overturned furniture, until we burst out the back door into the yard.
It’s a hellscape—open battle, lit by bonfire flames. Men shoot at each other from behind cars and fight in the grass, shoving each other’s faces in the mud. One Son wields a flaming log like a sword, the ground behind him ablaze, fire quickly spreading.
“Shit.” Ever clutches his arm. “Keep going, Ruth. He’s right behind us.”
God help us. I run so fast my legs and arms feel like they’re on fire, but I don’t let myself stop. Ever grunts beside me, faster than me but guarding my back, somehow able to do it even though he’s shot. He shouldn’t be able to move like this injured. I want to believe it’s the adrenaline, but when his face was pressed close to mine, I saw his wild pupils. He’s under the hold of the drugs.
The sound of a close gunshot makes me turn over my shoulder. The bald man takes aim again. A sob escapes my throat.
“Eyes ahead!” Ever yells, but suddenly there’s another gunshot and the man chasing us rocks back like he’s been punched. A perfect circle of blood blooms on his chest, and then he’s down in the grass.
He’s dead.
A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me and my legs give out. I bend over, hands clutching my knees, chest heaving as I try to fill my lungs with air and laugh at the same time.
“Hey.” Ever is beside me, rubbing soothing circles on my back. “You’re having a panic attack. It’s okay; it’s understandable. But the bayou’s just ahead. Just make it there, and we’ll lose them in the water, okay?”
I look up at him—his face flushed pink, beads of sweat glistening along his nose, eyes so round and otherworldly—and shout, “You could’vedied.”
“Now’s not the time—” He stops, glances back at the compound, and groans. “The bullet just grazed me. I’m going to be fine, Ruth.”
“But you didn’t know that when you jumped. When you stepped in front of me, you didn’t know.”
“Listen.” Everett crouches, bringing his face level with mine. We’re both breathing hard. All the stars in his eyes have been blown out, eclipsed. “I’m never going to let anything happen to you.” He squeezes my shoulders. “Which is why you have to trust me when I say we need to keep going.”
I want to sink into his eyes—the total darkness of oblivion and peace—but I force myself to stand, recognizing the hot-wire urgency of his words. And the minute I do, the volume on the world turns back up: gunfire and shouting, roaring at full blast.
