Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1)

by Marysol James

  Or monsters.

  From the pattern of the sounds that had been coming from outside, Keegan figured that there was only one shooter – but that didn’t necessarily mean that there was just one asshole running around out there. For all he knew, this lonely farmhouse was completely surrounded and every guy was packing… just waiting for his chance to open fire and take Trish out, though he couldn’t understand what the hell the point of killing her might be. Dragon had done his damage and wreaked havoc, he’d beaten the woman into the ground both literally and figuratively. So why go fucking nuclear like this? Why wasn’t Trish’s total annihilation and humiliation enough for this prick? Dis she want her head on a stake for real so he could put it up online next to that ghastly rape video, or what?

  Keegan snuck another quick look outside, hoping to see a flash of light or a movement – anything to give him some sense how close danger actually was. He’d been strangely fine when the gunfire had been wrecking the room around him, but now that all was silent and still, he was tense. In his experience, bad, bad shit always happened after the calm; the worst things imaginable always needed a breath to get ready and gear up fully.

  As the silence stretched on and on and fucking on, Keegan felt like every nerve ending that he had was on the outside of his body, sticking out of his skin, bristling and snarling. He peered into the darkness outside again, praying now for even the smallest clue of who he was up against and what he was fighting.

  Nothing. Nothing but open space under a calm starry sky, as far as the eye could see, stretching in every direction.

  C’mon King. C’mon, c’mon. Where the fuck are you guys?

  **

  Seconds earlier, King and Dalton had just finished a private conversation that was long overdue: it had been years coming and as such, had been destined to either go fantastically well or wildly wrong. Luckily, they saw eye-to-eye on pretty much everything to do with the dregs of society that they needed to discuss, so they’d reached an agreement pretty painlessly. They had just shaken hands while a bemused Jack had looked on from a distance when the gunshots exploded the peace and quiet. Without a pause, the three men whirled to look at the farmhouse. They knew – they just knew – that the sound was coming from there.

  Where Keegan and Trish were.

  “What the fuck –” Dalton began when King’s cell rang and he snatched it up, his feet already heading for his Range Rover. Jack and Dalton followed him right away, no need to be asked.

  “Tank, what the hell, man?” King snarled mid-stride. “You still at the bar with the dickhead?” He stopped dead all of a sudden and Dalton and Jack knew – they just knew – that Callum Decker wasn’t in Tank’s line of sight. “How? How did he get out of the bar? Through the – kitchen? Fuck me.”

  “Shit,” Jack muttered as he opened the passenger side front door. “Nobody gives Tank the slip.”

  “Except apparently somebody did,” Dalton replied from the back seat. “And that somebody is now over there shooting up the goddamn farmhouse.”

  King shoved his phone into his jean pocket, turned the car key savagely. “Code red, guys.”

  “No kidding,” Dalton rasped, hanging on for dear life as King peeled out onto the highway. “How many shooters are we looking at?”

  “As far as Tank can tell, Decker was completely alone at the bar. That Bulldog Villiers guy definitely left the state on a plane earlier and Decker’s rental car is gone from the bar parking lot, so we have to think that he drove himself to the farmhouse.”

  “Should we try to make contact?” Jack asked.

  “No sense calling Keegan now,” King said. “He and Trish are either already dead or fighting for their lives, and the last thing they need is a goddamn cell phone giving their location away.” King pushed the accelerator straight to the floor, watched as both men checked their weapons. “Suit up, boys. We’re going in hot and no messing around.”

  “Shoot to maim and have them begging for mercy, boss?” Jack asked.

  King changed gears and somehow seemed to drive even faster than the maximum. “Shoot to do whatever the hell you have to do to get us the fuck out of there, then you all make yourselves scarce double-time. Just grab Sinclair and Trish in whatever state they’re in and dash. I’ll handle the fall-out and the cops, if it comes to that.”

  “Got it,” Jack said and Dalton nodded, quite naturally falling back into the role of following orders. Dalton had been a damn good soldier back in the day and despite his general bad attitude about pretty much everything, that had never extended to his superior officers. Dalton MacGregor knew how to respect commands, watch his brothers’ backs, and make sure that as many good people as possible walked off the battlefield.

  And sure as hell that’s exactly where they were heading right now.

  A field of battle and no damn doubt about it.

  Chapter 18

  The body is an amazing thing full of mystery and memory. It remembers and reacts to things that our minds might have blocked out, things that we can’t even begin to process on an emotional level. It holds on to and remembers good sensations easily of course – it lives and longs for pleasure on a primal and purely selfish level. But there are some things that are so traumatic and painful that even if we’ve fought to either move past them or deny them, the body never forgets them. It can’t, no matter how much we might want it to do exactly that.

  Keegan hadn’t forgotten getting shot three times in the leg, or at least he didn’t think that he had. If he closed his eyes now, he was still able to call up everything from those unending and horrifying hours: the copper smell of his own blood mingling with the hot sand; the saltiness of sweat, both his and his military brothers’. His brothers’ blurred voices surrounding him, alternating between calming and tense; the sound of gunfire both from a distance and right next to him. The blinding, agonizing pain that had felt like fire and stabbing at the same time; the helplessness that he’d known lying there literally feeling his life flood out of him, just pool around him in thick, shiny red.

  So it was nothing but a shock when the bullet tore through his left shoulder and he realized that – in actual fact – he had forgotten the depth and breadth of the pain of being shot. But his body hadn’t. It reacted with a sense of well, of course this is what this feels like to have a fast-moving piece of metal tear through flesh and sinew and blood. It feels like fucking hell. You actually forgot how bad this was, you dumbass?

  He lay there on the farmhouse living room floor clutching his shoulder, all that memory washing over him, almost paralyzing him with the force of its wave. Then he remembered that even if the pain was the same, nothing else was. Literally nothing.

  Back in Afghanistan, he’d been smack in the middle of a firefight with hard-boiled kidnappers, but he’d been surrounded by a unit of highly-trained guys. He’d been vulnerable and flat on his ass, but protected and saved by his military family. Here and now though, under the endless black Colorado sky, he was the only protector and savior in sight for the moment – so there was no goddamn time to lie here and wallow in the pain. He had shit to do.

  Starting with getting back to Trish. Then thinking of ways to stay alive until King, Dalton and Jack showed up. Then getting his hands on a gun and shooting that fucker Dragon Decker in the goddamn face.

  First things first. Get your ass back to Trish.

  He saw her bare foot sticking out from behind the sofa, way across the room from him, right where he’d left her. She hadn’t moved an inch and he guessed that from that vantage point, she hadn’t seen him get shot. Not much he could do to hide it, he knew, especially since he was leaving a trail of blood behind him as he pulled himself an agonizing inch at a time across the wooden floor. He grimly kept moving, his whole mind and being focused on getting to Trish before anyone else did.

  It felt like an hour before he was touching her again – it was really no longer than thirty seconds – and all he saw was the terror in those eyes. Her fear grounded him in a w
eird way, reminded him just what was at stake if he didn’t get control of this situation, starting from right now.

  “Keegan,” she whispered, clutching him to her. “They’re shooting again. What did you see?”

  “Nothin’,” he responded in a low voice, trying not to wince when she pushed up against his upper body. “Nothin’ at all.”

  “So – maybe they’re gone now?”

  “I wish I could say that they are, baby. But the truth is, they came here tonight lookin’ to do somethin’. I can’t see ‘em turnin’ tail until it’s done.”

  “Wait.” Trish was staring at his left shoulder now and he knew that despite wearing a dark t-shirt, the blood was visible. “Is that – is that blood? Are you hurt?”

  “It ain’t bad.”

  “I didn’t ask that,” she said severely. “I asked if you’re hurt.”

  “Well…” he said slowly, knowing there was no way out of this. “I got shot.”

  “You got what?” Her voice raised. “Keegan –”

  “Shhhh.” He pressed his fingers to her lips. “Stay quiet, Trish.”

  “But –”

  “No buts,” he said. “We need to get as many doors and as much defense between us and what’s out there as we can. Now…” Keegan took a deep breath, watched as she copied him and sucked in air herself. “Is there a gun in the house?”

  “Yes, there’s a shotgun right –”

  “Well, well, well. Look what we have here.”

  Trish’s words were cut off by the cold voice coming from behind Keegan. She gave a small scream and he spun away and up, onto his feet and in front of the sofa, all in one strong fluid movement. Trish was left lying on the floor stunned at his speed and agility: she’d barely uttered the exhalation of breath in the time that he’d stood to face Dragon Decker. She scrambled to get her legs under her but Keegan waved his hand at her to stay down behind the sofa, planted his massive body more firmly between her and the monster pointing a gun straight at Keegan’s heart.

  “Sooo.” Dragon drew the word out, making it sound all the more ominous somehow. “The lovebirds reunited, huh? You kissed and made up with the pathetic whore, did you Sinclair?”

  “It’s just you, Decker?” Keegan asked in a calm, even voice, praying with everything that he had that King and the guys were mere seconds away. “You all on your lonesome out here?”

  “Maybe.” Dragon shrugged. “Maybe not.”

  “Huh.” Keegan cocked his head at Dragon in what he was sure was an almost friendly way, as if there was zero threat going on here whatsoever. “Clear as mud.”

  “You know it.” Dragon shifted his weight a bit, kept the gun pointed at Keegan. “Now, here’s what’s gonna happen: you’re gonna hand over that little slut to me without a word of protest.”

  “You think so?” Keegan drawled, reminding himself to just play for some more damn time, as much as he could buy himself.

  “I do.”

  “You really think so?”

  “I really do.”

  “Well… huh.” Keegan paused as if deep in thought, then shook his head. “That’s a negative there, good buddy.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see.” Dragon grinned and waved the gun around a bit. “You’re thinking that you two losers have a choice.”

  “We do have a choice, you stupid prick.”

  Keegan whirled around at Trish’s voice behind him – and was nothing but horrified to see her standing there with a shotgun in her rock-steady hands. It was pointed straight at Dragon.

  “What the fuck?” Dragon bellowed. “You damn slut –”

  Quick as blink, without a word of warning or even a change in her breathing, Trish shot him in the hand.

  Dragon roared again, this time in articulate pain and rage, and dropped the gun. He gripped his shattered, destroyed right hand in his left and blood started to drip to the floor. The dragon tail of his tattoo was mostly gone, and she felt savagely glad about that.

  “Kick that gun over to Keegan,” Trish told him. “Now – unless you want me to go for your other hand and you think you’d enjoy learning to jerk yourself off with your goddamn toes.”

  With a growl, Dragon did as she told and Keegan picked up the gun right away. He checked it and then held it loosely by his side; it was loaded and ready to go, but he didn’t want to point it at Dragon and turn his back on Trish right now. He needed to be 100% focused on her – no distractions or divided attention.

  “Kneel down, hands behind your head,” Trish told Dragon. “Or one hand and whatever the hell is left of the other. Now.”

  He did as he was told, his eyes ice, his face contorted in pure hatred as he muttered “You shot me, you fucking bitch”. Trish contemplated him down on his knees surrounded by his own blood, and she smiled.

  “On second thought,” Trish said. “Maybe I should just go for it, huh?”

  “Whoa,” Keegan said. “Hey, baby… deep breath, OK?”

  “Why?” she said, her voice and purple eyes as steady as her hands. “I’m breathing just fine. I know what I’m doing.”

  “What are you doin’?” Keegan asked gently.

  “I’m deciding where the hell to shoot him next. His ugly face? His chest that’s missing a heart?” Trish lowered the shotgun barrel to Dragon’s waist and watched him flinch. “His disgusting little rapist dick?”

  “Whoa,” Keegan repeated, his hands up in a placatory gesture while keeping an eye on the other man. “Think this through –”

  “Why?” she asked with no emotion at all and that scared Keegan more than if she’d been shouting. “Why should I? I mean, who would miss him if he got blown off the face of the earth? Who’d come looking? And even if someone did notice and give a crap, you think they’d call the cops to search for a piece of shit like him?”

  “Trish –”

  “No, Keegan. I don’t care, do you understand? I don’t care. He deserves this – and I deserve to be the one to do it even if it means that I get caught and spend the rest of my childbearing years in prison. It’d be worth it.”

  “Don’t,” Dragon said thickly as it seemed to occur to him that she was actually serious. “Just – don’t, OK? Please don’t.”

  “Don’t fucking talk to me,” Trish hissed, her words pure venom. “Christ, you’re the last person in the world entitled to ask me for anything… especially mercy.”

  “You’re right, sugar,” Keegan said. “He has no right, but maybe I do and I’m beggin' you… please don’t do this. I promise you that if you kill him, you’ll feel thrilled and relieved and badass for a few seconds, then you’ll regret it.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You will – you will if you throw the whole rest of your life away on him.”

  “Only if I’m caught.” Trish narrowed her eyes at Keegan. “And who’d rat me out to the cops? You? The only witness?”

  Just then Keegan saw movement in the hallway behind Trish and he started before he saw King’s face. The other man shook his head in warning and Keegan understood: if he alerted Trish to a person behind her in the wrong way, she’d probably turn and shoot him too. Keegan took a deep breath.

  “Trish…you remember how I told you that help wasn’t far away? That we weren’t all alone out here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK, well. You need to listen to me real close now.”

  “OK.”

  “Their names are King, Dalton and Jack.”

  “And?”

  “And they’re on our side. They’re friends of mine.”

  “What’s your point, Keegan?”

  “My point is that they’re here and I’m askin’ you to please not shoot ‘em by accident. They ain’t the bad guys.”

  “How do you know they’re here?”

  “Because they’re right behind you. No shootin’, remember. Nice and easy, baby.”

  Trish turned slowly and blinked in astonishment at the men standing quietly behind her. She lowered the shotgun a bit.

&nbs
p; “Ms. Montgomery,” the largest, broadest, scariest one said in a gravelly voice. “I’m King. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “Uh.” Trish stared some more and then manners came to her rescue. “You too.”

  “All clear outside, King?” Keegan asked. “Nobody lurkin’ about?”

  “Nope. It’s just the lone asshole,” King replied. He looked hard at Keegan. “You hit in your shoulder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bad?”

  “Nah. I been through worse.”

  “No shit,” King said wryly. “You good until we can get to my team medic? I think it’d be good to stay away from the hospitals unless you’re in really bad shape.”

  “I’m good.” Keegan said. “I ain’t dyin’ and he didn’t hit anythin’ major and I ain’t about to leave.”

  “Have you got anything to staunch the blood?” King asked Trish. “A dishtowel, a shirt?”

  “Uh.” She looked half-awake and glazed, and shook herself a bit and pointed. “The kitchen’s over that way.”

  “I’ll find somethin’,” Keegan said. “Don’t fuss about me – I got this.” He wandered off in the direction that Trish had pointed.

  “I’ll be quick anyway.” King looked at Trish again and continued, “Here’s the thing: I totally understand why you want to shoot this pathetic waste of skin and oxygen. I do. Hell, anyone in this room would take him out given half a chance if he’d done to our own loved ones what he’s done to you.”

  “OK. So can I shoot him?”

  Up went the shotgun barrel again and Dragon cringed. Keegan reappeared with a dishtowel and handed it to one of the other men.