“There’s a car on the side of the building. I can hot wire it.”
She tilts her head. “If we can make it out there.”
If he can make it. That’s what she’s too kind to say. He might bleed out before they even reach the door.
“I’ll tell you how, then you go and I’ll make noise to distract ‘em.”
“I’m not leaving you here.” Her glare is sharp. “Just shoot them. We still have the gun.”
“There’s only one bullet. If one of the others are runners too, then we’re back where we started.”
She pouts, grabbing a t-shirt off a rack to replace the one she stuffed against his thigh. “We get out of here together.”
“I’m not saying leave me for good. I’d prefer that you didn’t. You can go back to the house and get the shotgun and—”
“And there are a million things that could happen between here and there, plus I can’t use a shotgun, Wyatt. I don’t know how. How would I get back in? I’m not leaving. I’m not.”
The firmness in her tone leaves no room for argument. “Okay. Then we need a plan B.”
She looks around the shop like there’s a hidden answer before getting up to fetch a bottle of vodka.
“Now you’re talking.” He half grins. “Let’s get shitfaced drunk.”
She narrows her eyes, grabbing a lighter from a display and another shirt off a hanger. “We’re not drinking it. We’re lighting it on fire.”
“Wait, what?”
“Molotov cocktail. I’ll toss it out the service window behind the counter, and it’ll draw their attention. Then we can shuffle out back and to the car.”
He gapes at her. “Have you ever made one of those before? Was that standard curriculum in the cult?”
“No, but I’ve seen twenty-three movies and two full series from start to finish, and one of them just so happened to feature this very skill. It can’t be that hard, right?”
He squints. “Twenty-three movies and two full series from start to finish. I stand corrected, you’re an expert.”
“Well, have you ever made one?” she counters.
She’s got him there. “Nope. Can’t say I have. Do it. Light ‘em up.”
He shouldn’t be thinking what he’s actually thinking at the moment. Watching her make a mini explosive is the hottest thing he’s ever seen in his life. Now ain’t the time, but apparently, his dick isn’t broken despite the rest of him falling apart.
It’s the first stirrings of clear attraction he’s had for anyone since his late wife. Back before he realized those kinds of feelings never led to anything good. They won’t this time either. The sooner he gets control of himself, the better.
She hands him a second bottle after uncapping it, and he takes two giant swallows, wishing he could have a third to take the edge off the pain and fuzz his brain. Then she props him up at the back door before taking her new weapons to the service window.
“I can do this. I can do this,” she whispers to herself, so low he can hardly hear it.
“You can,” he tells her. “We still have to find Emma. Gotta get out of here first to do that.”
The runner has three slow friends now. They’re all mildly distracted by a rabbit, but the moment she opens that window, they’ll be on her in no time.
The satisfying crunch of glass breaking and the following fireballs lighting up the space tell him she pulled it off without a hitch.
It’s distraction enough to let them slip out the back door and pile into the Jeep. It’s only when they’re safely inside that he realizes they’d be extra screwed if it were locked.
He hot-wires it in under thirty seconds, and they peel out of the parking lot just as the runner claws at the bumper.
For the first time in the last hour, Wyatt breathes a sigh of relief. Half his adrenaline goes with that exhale, and his injuries flare hot, but that isn’t what makes him yell out for her to stop the car.
