Page 94 of Butterfly Assassin
Blake grinned. “Gonna chance it, Detective?” He pressed harder and Miller winced. “This gun’s got a bit of a hair trigger. Maybe you can kill me without it going off. But maybe you can’t.” He licked his lips. “Prepared to risk it?”
“Shoot him,” Miller gritted out. “Do it.”
Michael glanced between Miller and Blake, grip tightening on his gun.
“Arch? Are you receiving? Over?”
Michael clicked the button on his radio, speaking as calmly as he could. “Send backupn—”
“Too late,” Blake whispered. He moved so quickly, Michael barely registered it. One moment he had a gun pressed to Miller’s head, the next he was aiming it at Michael.
The gunshot rang out in the quiet of the night, dulled by the silencer, but still out of place in the quaint village. Pain followed hot on its heels, sharp and visceral, exploding in Michael’s right arm.
Michael gasped, his gun clattering to the ground, and wet met his fingers when he grabbed his biceps. Praying Blake didn’t shoot him again, he ducked to grab his gun, but when he raised it in Blake’s direction there was nothing to aim at.
Both Miller and Blake were gone.
How the fuck did they move so quickly?
Ignoring the throbbing in his arm, Michael turned in a circle, scanning the driveway and the front garden. Nothing in the immediate vicinity, but it was too dark to see far.
Reaching for his radio, he walked over to where Miller and Blake had been standing, searching the ground for any kind of clue. “Sierra one zero, Sierra one zero receiving Sierra four. Over.”
“Jesus, Arch. What the hell happened?”
“Blake had a gun. He’s got Miller.”
Light spilt out from the front of the house where the door stood ajar. Michael hesitated. He should wait for backup. White could be in there too. He could beshifted.
Fuck.
“I think he took him into the house,” Michael said, lowering his voice and inching towards the door. He held his gun in his left hand, not ideal, but he could still aim fairly well with it.
“We’re on our way, Arch. Don’t do anything stupid.”
He’d already done that. Taking his eye off Blake, even for a second, had proved disastrous.
“I won’t, but—”
A pained scream spilt out of the house, and Michael was already running towards the front door as he yelled into his radio. “Call for an ambulance and hurry the fuck up!”
“Arch!” Muffled cursing sounded before the radio cut off and Michael hoped to God they were close.
Another cry filled the air, this one muted in comparison, trailing off into a drawn-out groan that was definitely Miller.
As much as it killed him to hear it, at least it meant Miller was still alive.
Being as quiet as he could while hurrying up the driveway, Michael kept his eyes peeled for any movement in his periphery.
He made it to the door unscathed and took a moment to catch his breath. The others should be here in the next few minutes. He could wait… but what if Miller didn’t have minutes?
Trusting Frank was on his way, Michael crept inside.
The hallway was narrow but thankfully empty. Three rooms branched off it, that Michael could see, before it disappeared around the corner.
He ducked inside the first one, gun raised, and found it empty. Same with the second.
Blood dripped onto the tiled floor as he walked, and Michael tried not to think about it. The bullet went through from what he could tell—easy to patch up as long as he made it out of there in one piece.
