Freeing Tuesday (23 page)

“Dead or alive. I have my orders to bring you back either way.”

“I’m not going back!”

“I
will
kill you! Do you understand that Mallory?” he yells.

“I’d rather be dead than be part of that again.”

Everything slows down as I watch his right hand draw his gun towards me and fire. I pull my trigger just before his bullet hits me.

White hot pain rips through my right shoulder and arm as my back smashes against the pavement. I fight to catch my breath as I lean up and look at Eddie. Blood is pouring from the center of his head. I might not like shooting but I’m damn good at it.

“TUESDAY!” Evan screams from inside the car.

“Don’t you dare move, Evan. You promised!”

I roll over and push myself up as fast as I can. I take two steps and bend over and vomit. Between the pain from being shot and the feeling of killing again I don’t think it is ever going to stop.

My breath comes in short spurts as I climb into the car again. Evan’s eyes are wide as he stares at me.

“Are you ok?” he asks as I bend over and force my arm to work. I flick the wires together again and this time, the car turns over and starts. I press down on the gas slightly as I answer him.

“I’ll be fine but we have to go. They don’t travel alone and the other guy is probably waiting in the car.”

“Tuesday, you’re fucking bleeding. You’ve been fucking shot. Get in the passenger seat!” he argues.

“It just grazed me. I’m fine. I know how to outrun these guys. Just do me a favor: get up here and put pressure on my shoulder.”

He climbs over the seat as carefully as his large frame will let him and pulls his shirt over his head.

“Well that definitely makes me feel better,” I joke as I slide the safety back on and slip the gun onto his lap.

“I’m here to help.” He smiles at me as he presses the fabric against the hole in my arm. I suck in a sharp breath from the pain as I rest my hand on the shifter.

I press the clutch and shift into first gear, “You’re awfully calm.”

“Not the first person I’ve seen be killed.”

“I’m so sorry, Evan.” I pull around Eddie’s body and turn right out of the parking lot. “Grab my phone and press nine.”

He does as I ask and puts it on speaker phone. “It’s ok Tuesday, I knew what I was getting into.”

I shake my head. He may have known some of what went on in my life but he doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of it.

“Agent Frey,” a voice booms out of the speaker.

“Frey you son of a bitch! How did they find me?” I yell.

“Mallory? Where are you?”

“Downtown. You might want to send someone to the parking center on Printers Way.”

“What the hell happened?” he screams through the phone.

“Oh, I don’t know, Frey! Why don’t you tell me how Eddie Garrison found me?” I yell back.

“I don’t know. Only four of us know, so it narrows down the leak. Was he alone?”

“I doubt it. They never do this type of shit alone. It’s hard to drive and shoot at the same time.”

Headlights appear in my mirror as I shift into third. It's taking every ounce of effort in my body to keep moving.

“Buckle up,” I say to Evan, “we might have company.”

“Tuesday,” Agent Frey calls out, “what are you doing? Where are you?”

I ignore him and speed up; the car behind us does the same thing. Shit! I turn left quickly, cutting off an oncoming car. The horn blows and tires screech as it tries to stop. The other car follows. I turn down every alley and throughway I can remember, driving as fast as I can without running people over until I hit the on ramp for the highway.

My foot presses further into the floorboard as I pull into the lane but he isn’t far behind me. Thankfully there aren’t many cars out this late. The car jolts forward as he rams into us.

“Son of a bitch,” I hear Evan mumble as he drops the phone. I can no longer hear Agent Frey over the blood pumping through my ears.

“I need you to reach over me and buckle me up.”

He does as I ask without question. As soon as he sits back I slow down a bit.

“What are you doing, Tuesday?”

“Hold on!” I yell as I throw the car in neutral and slam on the brakes. His hands leave my shoulder and slam against the dash as the car slams into the back of us.

The air fills with the sounds of crunching metal. I try to breathe through the pain that shoots through my shoulder again. The force from the hit pushes us up the highway more.

I shift back into gear and take off again. I hear something dragging but since it's not affecting the way it drives, I'm not stopping.

I grit my teeth to suppress a scream as Evan pushes his shirt back against my shoulder. I can feel the blood running down my arm and I shake my head as I start to get dizzy. The car reaches ninety before I see the other car in my mirror again.

I take the next exit as fast as I can. My eyes search around, trying to find somewhere to hide. I don’t see anything and I haven’t driven in this part of town before so I don’t know where to go.

The car smashes into the back of us again. My head collides against the steering wheel as I slam on the brakes and the car stalls out.

“Fuck!” Evan screams.

We're moving too fast and we crash head first into a parked car; hitting hard enough to flip us onto the sidewalk about ten feet from the edge of a bridge. The roof hits with a loud crunch and the glass shatters around us.

Evan grunts as his body strains against the seatbelt. I scream out in pain and my eyes begin to tear up again. It’s a strange feeling; having your tears roll down your forehead instead of your cheeks.

I hear Evan fumbling around and the click of the seatbelt. His body drops to the roof of the car and he quickly untangles himself. He wipes the tears and hair away from my face and when his hands swipe over where my head hit I flinch.

He kisses my lips lightly, which, no matter how many times I see it done; it’s awkward when one of us is upside down.

“You ok?” he asks, his voice laced with panic.

“I’m dizzy and I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I say between breaths. I start to panic and my chest rises between my short breaths.

“It’s going to be ok,” he reassures me even though his face tells me differently.

He tells me he will be right back and I don’t even have the energy to tell him that it’s a bad idea. Instead, I close my eyes and the last thing I hear is the ring of shots being fired. I don’t even know if Evan is ok.

Evan

What the hell am I doing?
I don’t know what I’m thinking getting out of the car and leaving Tuesday. I just want to make everything better for once in my life.

She has already lost a lot of blood. The fact that she’s dizzy and feels like she is going to be sick doesn’t ease my worries any.

She scared the hell out of me with everything she did tonight and I’m still not sure how she ended up being such a good person after everything she had to do growing up.

I slide out of the car, jamming shards of glass into my hands and knees as I crawl. The weight of the gun in my hand is light in comparison to the weight in my chest. I know that as soon as I do what I think I’m going to do there’s no turning back.

My whole body shakes as I near the car that started all of this. A 2013 Chevy Camaro. The front bumper hangs by a corner as smoke billows out of the crunched up hood. I can hear the antifreeze running out of the smashed up radiator and onto the ground.

I draw the gun as I walk between the cars and aim it at the driver. His door creaks open and it scares me how fast I pull the trigger once I can see him. I fire off three rounds into the center of his chest before he even has a chance to get a good grip on his pistol.

I turn and walk away because I don’t need to watch him die; I know it’s going to happen. I feel my stomach starting to turn and I run toward the bridge, launching my top half over the railing just before my dinner comes up.

Tuesday was right when she told me it was different than killing in the military. It cuts deeper into your soul knowing that you weren’t ordered to do it. I did this to keep Tuesday safe. It was an act of self-defense.

I toss the gun into the water and it disappears. I know it won’t make much of a difference because when they run ballistics on him and the guy Tuesday just killed, they’re going to come back a match and then it’s going to come back on us.

I leave any thoughts of this going bad at the bridge and make my way back to her and the smashed up cars. I can hear the sirens headed toward us but all I care about is knowing if she’s going to be ok.

I crawl back into the passenger side of the car and grind more glass into my skin. The puddle of blood that’s formed on the roof under Tuesday’s head scares the shit out of me. I watch her chest to see if she’s still breathing and when I don’t see it move I start panicking and searching for the pulse point in her neck. I know where it is, I’ve kissed the damn thing a million times but do you think I can find it right now? My fingers slide through the coating of blood on her skin until I find it. It’s faint, but it’s there.

Sliding myself underneath her, I shove my shoulder into her waist so she doesn’t fall when I undo her seat belt. I use my free arm to slide her down and into my lap. She groans in pain when her shoulder moves. I never thought I would want to see her in pain but right now if it means she’s still alive then I’ll take it.

I lean over and press my lips against hers, whispering to her that everything is going to be ok until the paramedics show up and pull her away from me. I fight them every step of the way when they try to separate us into different ambulances and it isn’t until someone in a suit yells that it’s ok, that they let me stay with her.

The man climbs in next to me and sits down. I know I’ve seen him somewhere before but it isn’t until he starts talking that it seeps through the fog my mind is in and I realize its Agent Frey.

“What happened, Evan?” he asks while staring at Tuesday’s bloody body lying on the stretcher.

I shake my head and look at my trembling hands in front of me. They are bloody and cut and I know there is glass embedded into them.

“I don’t know,” I say softly. “One minute we’re having a great night and she’s singing to me and dancing, acting like she doesn’t have this horrible monster waiting to catch her off her guard…” I stop for a second and look at the woman I’ve spent the last year getting to know better than I know myself. The only girl I’ve ever let get this close. “Then she’s telling me I have to trust her and shoving me into a car that isn’t ours.”

The paramedic wraps a blanket over my shoulders and I remember I had taken off my shirt to try and stop Tuesday’s bleeding. He pours saline over my hands and starts inspecting them while Agent Frey keeps asking questions.

“Who shot first?”

“He did,” I answer quickly.

His eyes narrow at me, “Did you see it?”

“No.”

“Then how can you be so sure he shot first?”

I think hard about what had happened and shrug. “I heard the first shot go off and I know it was a higher caliber than Tuesday’s little Glock. That and it’s pretty hard to shoot someone after you’ve been shot in the head.”

“What about the second guy?” When I don’t answer him he asks a different question. “Where’s the gun, Evan?”

“In the river. I got sick and it just… slipped out of my hand when I was puking.”

He scoffs, “Killing isn’t for everyone. She, however, doesn’t seem to have an issue with it.”

His words make my blood boil and I have to force myself not to hit him. “With all due respect, Sir, I was a Marine sniper. I’ve killed my fair share of people and she didn’t do this for fun. He stalked us tonight and flat out told her he was going to kill her. She shot him out of self-defense just like I did. I assessed the situation and took action. If I hadn’t shot him, he would have shot us both.”

“Just like that?” he asks. I don’t understand his question. I’m pretty sure I can't get much clearer so he changes what he’s saying. “Just like that, you’re willing to kill someone for a woman you barely even know. I doubt you know anything about her past and why she has these people after her.”