“Shut up, Bass,” he said through clenched teeth. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Shepherd tightened his hand on his neck, and his breathing went harsh. “You son of a bitch,” he rasped out. “I knew this was all your fault. You fucked everything up.”
The grin that spread across Bass’s face was a bad idea. “That was the plan. Although I’d have rather you were dead than Boone.”
“You first,” Shepherd spat as he pulled the gun away from Tag’s head.
Then everything happened at once.
“Tag! Run!” Bass yelled as he lunged forward, hands out to grab Shepherd’s wrist.
But he was too far away, and Shepherd’s finger had already tightened on the trigger. There were a lot of things—more than he even realized—that Tag didn’t know about Bass. But he knew he didn’t want him dead.
Tag grabbed Shepherd’s wrist, thick muscle and bone, and shoved up at the same time he threw his head back. The back of his skull crunched satisfyingly against Shepherd’s face, and Shepherd staggered back.
“I said, run,” Bass snarled as he got his hands around Shepherd’s wrist and wrestled it up. “Is the only place you fucking listen in bed?”
Shepherd roared in frustration and slung Tag bodily away from him, hard enough to bounce him off the bullet-riddled wall of the barn. This time it was definitely more than one rib that bent too far and snapped. As Tag slid down the wall to the ground, Shepherd swung the heavy steel briefcase in a short, brutal arc. The reinforced corner caught Bass on the side of the head, and he staggered backward, unsteady as he shook his head and tried to focus.
“Cop killers do okay in jail,” Shepherd said as he jerked the gun back down. He tightened his finger on the trigger as a low, rough voice barked, “Fass!” from outside.
The big black dog shot in through the door like an arrow and launched itself into the air. It latched on to Shepherd’s forearm, sank its sharp white teeth in to the gums, and whipped its muscular body from side to side.
Shepherd howled and staggered as sixty-five pounds of K-9 tried to take him down. He swung his arm out and around in an attempt to dislodge the black dog as it snarled through meat and bone. When that didn’t work, he remembered the gun and tried to jam it into the thick ruff of the dog’s neck.
Before he could pull the trigger, a different gun barked and blew most of Shepherd’s shoulder joint out through his back. Shepherd finally went down. The dog hung on to him, head slick as an otter with blood, and growled steadily until its handler came in with the order to loose. Then its sharp black ears pricked up, and the plumed tail wagged in happy arcs.
“She okay?” Merlo asked.
The handler slapped the dog’s shoulder with rough affection. “She’s good.”
Tag pushed himself off the wall and limped over to Bass. Bass ignored the attempts to wave him away as Tag caught Bass’s face in his hands and probed at his skull with cautious fingertips. Bass flinched away from the pressure with a grimace, and blood stained his sandy curls, but his eyes focused and nothing moved under Tag’s fingers.
“You’re going to be okay,” Tag told him.
“What about you?” Bass asked. He reached up and brushed his fingers along Tag’s jaw. “Us?”
That was… not a question Tag had an answer to right then. He pulled away from Bass and loped over to Shepherd. Blood puddled under the man’s shoulder, and he had the gray, glassy look of someone going rapidly into shock. The wound on the front of his shoulder wasn’t pretty, but it also wasn’t the main problem.
Tag pulled his shirt over his head and rolled Shepherd onto his side so he could press the makeshift bandage against the bloody hole.
“You need to get an ambulance up here right now,” he said over his shoulder. Blood had already soaked through the green cotton and oozed between his fingers as he kept pressure on it. “And get me a first aid kit, if anyone has one.”
“There should be one in the van,” the K-9 handler volunteered. Merlo turned and nodded to someone outside.
“Trust me,” Bass said as he dropped into a crouch on the other side of Shepherd. “The world’s not going to be any worse off if he dies.”
“I don’t make that decision,” Tag said. “This is my job. I’m not going to cry if he dies, but it won’t be my fault either. Where’s the first aid kit? I need gauze and bandages.”
