Kate Sherwood - Dark Horse 03 - Of Dark and Bright (21 page)

There was more that Dan had planned to say, but he somehow hadn’t expected the blow. His father was using his handgun as a club, and he slammed it into the side of Dan’s face. Pain exploded, and Dan staggered, bent over a little, and then felt his father’s hands on the back of his neck, pushing his head down, fast and hard. Dick’s knee rose to meet Dan’s face, and there was another nauseating burst of pain. Dan could hear bone crunching and tried to get his hands in the way, but the angle was wrong, and he was too slow, and the whole thing was repeated, this time with Dan’s head turned a little so his father’s knee smashed into his cheekbone and then into his eye.

Dan wasn’t supposed to be the action hero. The FBI had made that clear. He was supposed to go in and sit there, and report what he saw and get ready to duck. But he wasn’t being
allowed
to fucking
sit
. He was getting beaten, maybe to the point that he’d be no use to anybody, and that needed to stop.

He stayed bent over as he charged forward, legs made strong from decades of riding, driving his hard shoulder into Dick’s stomach. He heard the grunt but kept going. He drove his feet into the floorboards and pushed off, steaming ahead, and he felt the satisfying crunch as his father’s ribs were compressed between Dan’s body and the wall.

There was a thud that took a moment for Dan to understand, and then he was diving, scrambling, grabbing for the gun his father had dropped. Dick was bent over, gasping for breath, and Dan fell on the gun and had his hands wrapped around it just as he saw the other two bodies lying on the floor, Tat’s eyes wide as they stared at him, the strange man’s face an impassive mask as he straightened his arm and pointed the gun in Dan’s direction.
Straightened his arm and took the gun away from Tat’s head
.

“Get in here!” he screamed, loud enough that they’d hear him outside even if the underwear-mike wasn’t working. He dropped onto the outstretched arm, using his full weight to keep the man from bringing the gun anywhere near Tat, ever again. He was in the process of stretching his own gun toward the man’s head when the cabin just seemed to explode. A whole wall was torn away by some unseen machinery, and black-garbed commandos streamed inside, yelling and pointing guns at everyone and generally making it impossible to think.

There were a couple of loud bangs, but Dan could barely distinguish them from all the rest of the noise. The commandos were in charge, Tat grabbed and swept outside before Dan had a chance to really see that she was safe, his father pinned, the stranger grabbed, and then there was a moment when the commandos seemed to realize where the man’s gun arm was. Where his gun was, and just what that meant.

Dan had realized it a few moments earlier when he’d tried to take a breath and found that it was almost impossible. The pain was part of the problem, down along his ribs and spreading fast, but there also seemed to be something wrong with his lungs, something….

He fought the panic back. He made himself focus. Jeff and Evan, smiling at him as he nuzzled into their bodies. But he wanted other people there too, so he put everyone’s clothes on and set them down at the long table in the Kaminski kitchen. He felt his body being shifted, lifted, and he was dimly aware that there was way too much blood. Not that there should be any, in an ideal situation, but there sure as hell should never be this much. But that was a distraction; that was why the weak had bad afterlives. He took himself back to Evan’s kitchen, and Jeff was there, and Tat and Anna and Robyn. Maybe it was Thanksgiving. Sure, why not. And Krista was there, because he wanted her to be. And since he was playing that game, he introduced everyone to Justin. He and Chris were standing off to the side, but then Tat scampered over to them, a few years younger than she was now, back when she’d been happy to be treated like a kid, and she dragged them forward, and they came willingly. And Justin smiled, and he looked happy and relaxed, not like he had after the accident. There was no pain, no fear, just love. Dan made himself focus on everyone’s smiling faces until he couldn’t focus on anything anymore.

T
HEY were trying to take Tat straight to the ambulance, but she was having none of it. She wrenched herself free of the paramedic trying to treat her gently and launched herself toward Evan. He stepped forward and caught her, wrapped her greedily in his arms, and rocked her like a little girl. “Tat. You’re okay? You’re okay?”

She nodded, but she was crying too hard to speak. They both knew she was anything
but
okay, in a very real sense. But she wasn’t injured. She wasn’t dying. Evan kissed her head, held her a little closer, and then looked toward the cabin. “Where’s Dan?” he asked.

Tat just cried harder, and Evan felt his body go cold. “Where is he, Tat?” But she couldn’t speak, and he whirled his body around, dragging her with him because he refused to let go, and searched the crowd for a familiar face. “Bill!” he bellowed. “Bill!”

Bill stepped off the front porch. The back wall of the cabin had been torn off and most of the activity was happening back there. If Bill was in front, he was probably just observing. “Evan,” he said seriously. He took a few steps closer, and Evan moved to meet him, Tat nestled in by his side. Bill stopped walking and said, “Dan’s been shot. We’ve got paramedics in there, and they’re giving him a quick patch and then taking him to the hospital. We don’t know how bad it is, yet….”

But Evan wasn’t listening. He was charging toward the front door, still hanging on tightly to Tat, and it was only when she actually cried out that he turned to look at her and noticed that she was pulling away from his grip, fighting, panicking… determined to not return to the room where she’d so recently been held captive. “Shit,” he said, and he stepped back toward her, let her drag him further away, then wrapped her in his arms. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She just sobbed and burrowed in deeper. He saw the agents and paramedics hovering nearby, wanting to get her into the ambulance, and for the first time, he decided that was a good idea. If she was somewhere safe, maybe he could go find Dan. He turned to Bill. “What the fuck happened? He was just supposed to be a hostage, not a fucking….” He trailed off. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Tat’s safe,” Bill said. “And we’ll take good care of Dan.”

Evan saw the stretcher then, being hoisted out from the ruined cabin and carried over the rough ground toward the ambulance. He saw Dan lying on it, too pale, and hooked up to too many different tubes and bags. Evan wrapped his arms around Tat a little tighter and hurried her toward the waiting ambulance.

The paramedics met her with gentle smiles and wrapped her in a warm blanket, and Evan was tempted to leave her for a moment, to go and see Dan. But the back doors of Dan’s ambulance were slammed shut, and Bill was there by Evan’s side. “He’s unconscious, and the paramedics need room to work,” Bill said. “You ride down with Tat. We’re all going to the same place.”

Evan nodded and climbed into the back of the ambulance. The doors were shut behind them and they began to move, but there was no siren. The only siren was the one from Dan’s ambulance, and Evan listened to it as it sped further and further away and finally faded out completely.

J
EFF had asked the nurse to stop giving him painkillers. He missed them, but he needed to be alert. He had no idea what was happening with the boys, but he knew he needed to be ready to help them any way he could. And Tat. Beautiful, confident, happy Tatiana. He couldn’t even think about her being in danger, not without his chest tightening up and sending shooting pain down his side. Tat would be fine, and Evan and Dan would be fine, and damn it, Jeff would be fine too. That was the only acceptable solution.

His mother’s phone rang, and she stood abruptly and fished it out of her purse. She saw the call display and moved closer to Jeff’s bed as she answered. “Evan? Are you okay? Is Tat okay?”

She listened for a moment, her eyes locked on Jeff’s, and he thought he saw her flinch, but couldn’t be sure. She was stoic, his mother. “I see,” she said. “Yes, all right. I’ll see what I can do.” She looked at Jeff as if considering something, then said, “Evan, I think Jeff needs to hear this. Would you like me to tell him, or can you tell him yourself?”

Evan obviously took the second option, because she handed Jeff the phone and then gripped his hand tightly. Jeff didn’t think he wanted to hear whatever Evan was about to say. “Kid?”

“Hey, Jeff. You’re okay? Your chest is okay?”
“I’m fine. What’s going on? Is Tat okay?”
“Tat’s okay. She’s shook up, but she’s okay.”

That was perfect news. Had his mother been overcome by happiness, not concern? But he looked at her and saw that her face was tight, and there were tears coming to her eyes as she looked resolutely back at him. “What’s wrong, then?” Jeff braced himself.

“It’s Dan. He was involved in the rescue, and he got shot. I don’t know how bad, but it didn’t look good. He was unconscious. There was so much… so much blood.” Evan sounded totally lost, and Jeff couldn’t think of how to help him. He couldn’t even think of how to help himself. Dan. Beautiful, strong, stubborn Dan. It was unthinkable. Unimaginable.

“They’re taking him to the hospital?” Jeff tried to marshal his thoughts. There were things to be done, surely.

“Yeah. Same one you’re in. Your mom’s going to go down and try to meet him in the emergency room. You know, in case he’s… in case he’s conscious. In case he’s scared.”

“I’ll go too,” Jeff decided, and he held a hand up to still his mother’s protest. “I’ve been walking around with this thing for a couple weeks now. I can already feel the anti-inflammatories doing their job. I’m going to go crazy sitting around up here. I’m going.”

There was no answer on the other end for a long moment, then Evan said, “Yeah. If you can, that’d be good.” He sounded like he was at the end of his emotional endurance, and Jeff’s body ached with the need to be close to Evan, to comfort him and give him strength.

“I can,” Jeff said firmly. “And when you get here, we’ll wait together.”

 

“Oh, fuck,” Evan said. “I almost forgot. Krista’s down there too. In the maternity ward, I guess. She went into labor.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jeff said. If it wasn’t for Dan, it would almost be funny, this confluence of medical emergencies. But it was impossible to find any of it humorous when Dan might be fighting for his life. “Okay. I’ll try to check on her too.”

“Can you call Chris too? I need to be with Tat, but Chris needs to know.”

“Fuck. Yeah. And Robyn.”
“And Taylor, and Ryan.”

“And everyone at the barn….” Jeff stopped. He couldn’t think like this, couldn’t let himself start listing all the people touched by Dan’s life. He needed to be in control. “I’ll start with Chris, though.”

“Okay.” Evan took a deep, shaky breath, then said, “He told me to tell you he loves you.”

 

“He can tell me that himself,” Jeff said fiercely. “Just get yourselves here, and we’ll take care of it together.”

 

“Yeah, okay,” Evan said, and he ended the call.

Jeff turned his head to his mother. “Don’t even argue. You know I’ll go more crazy up here than I would if I were with everybody else.”

“I wasn’t going to argue,” she said. “I was just going to get a nurse, and see if there’s an extra orderly around to push you in a wheelchair.” She stood up decisively. “I think it’s time we spent a bit of Evan’s money.”

Chapter 17

E
VERYTHING was foggy, and when he tried to move, everything was pain. It washed over him and he let it push him back into the fog, where nothing hurt, but nothing made sense, either. He rested for a while, then tried again, forced his way back into his body, and this time he managed to get his eyes open. The light was too bright, and he closed them again, but he felt fingers tighten around his hand.

“Danny?” The familiar voice was rough and strained. “Jeff,” he tried, but he was pretty sure it came out as more of a mumble. Or a moan.

 

“Yeah, Tex, I’m here. So’s Evan.”

 

“Hey, man,” Evan said, and then there were fingers on Dan’s other hand, gentle but strong. “How you doing?”

Dan had no idea. He was pretty sure he was in a hospital. That didn’t suggest that he was doing too well. Couldn’t Evan ask the doctors how he was doing? They’d probably have a better idea. They might even know what the hell had happened to him. “Horse?” he tried.

Even Jeff’s laugh sounded tired. “You didn’t fall off a horse, Danny.”

Oh. Okay. That was strange, then, because his life was really pretty safe, except for the damn horses. The fog was sneaking up on him again, and he decided to let it carry him away. Things would make more sense eventually.
E
VANwasn’t really sure if it was respectful for him to have done it. Dan always hated it when Evan threw his money around to get what he wanted, so doing it when Dan was unconscious, and doing it at least partly in Dan’s honor… yeah, it was probably disrespectful. But that was just too damned bad. Dan could get better and yell at Evan all he wanted, and Evan would just smile and nod, because it would mean that Dan was back to himself.

So he cranked the back of his hospital bed so he was almost sitting up, and for the first time in too damn long, he let himself relax. He could look right across the aisle of the ward he’d paid to privatize, and he could see the men he loved being taken care of. Recovering. There were still too many tubes in Dan, too many machines, but the doctors were being optimistic. Two bullets at point-blank range, one going right through Dan’s lung, the other passing through without hitting anything major but causing serious blood loss. But Danny was tough. He’d be okay. He had to be.

Evan looked to the bed next to him. Tat was there, curled up with Robyn snuggled in next to her, and they were both reading trashy gossip magazines. Tat was still quieter than she should be, and she was clingy, not going anywhere alone, but it was less than two days since she’d been freed. She’d get better.

Anna had the bed next to Tat’s. She’d said she didn’t need it, she could sleep in a chair next to Jeff’s bed, but Evan had looked straight at her when he told Jeff that everyone needed to take good care of themselves in order to be strong enough to help whoever needed it next, and Anna seemed to have heard the message. Evan hoped she had, at least. The last thing their little family team needed was another illness.