Page 2 of Violent Skies

Boots crunch through glass behind me, and my entire body becomes paralyzed. I’m caught.

“There’s nothing here,” I say, trying to control the shake in my voice. “I’m an underpaid ER nurse…”

“The whiny ones are the worst,” the man at the door huffs as a commotion happens from the living room.

“We aren’t here for the money,” the one behind me barks, and I spin to look at him. “That’s someone else's job.”

Dread surges violently through my bloodstream.

Lightning flickers across the night sky and the bright glint of a knife flashes beneath my socked foot. I throw the hammer as hard as I can, and it hurtles across the kitchen at the man as I snap down and wrap my hand around the handle of the knife. The other rushes me from behind, almost catching my hair, but I feel his fingers graze my skin as I thrust forward and slide the blade through his shoulder.

He hollers, and I’m yanked back by the hair with so much force that it pulls at the scalp and burns so brightly that my eyes water.

“She fucking stabbed me!”

“I wouldn’t—” I yell, the nurse in me taking control. But he tugs on the handle and rips the knife free. The blood spills from him instantly without the plug. He starts to panic, his stupidly large body swaying sideways as he becomes dizzy.

“You should let me help him,” I hiss through my teeth. “He’s got about six minutes…” another hard yank, “before that becomes a fatal problem.”

“Enough,” he snaps and shoves me forward onto my knees before his boot finds my ribcage. I’m tossed to the side, and I can feel the sharp pain of separation as my ribs crack. The next breath I take feels like there's a raging fire in my lungs, but my palms find the ground. The stinging spreads across them as the glass bites into the skin, but I get myself back to my feet as he moves around to help his friend.

“In three weeks, someone is going to come knocking, and you’re going to have the five hundred thousand in a duffle, ready for them.” He stares at me, paralyzed in pain and confusion. “Do you understand?”

“I don’t have that kind of money,” I spit out.

“Not my problem,” he clips.

The third man stumbles into the kitchen, his face dripping with blood and murder clenched tightly in his fist. “What are you waiting for? Kill her,” he groans, shoving past them.

“We were told to leave her alive.” He’s halted in his heavy steps by a hand around his bicep.

“She broke shit in my face!” He points to his face and tugs free of the grip.

The biggest of the three looks between me, and him, as I step back toward the back door with inching, cautious steps. His friends are a mess, and I’m within arm’s reach of the knob.

“She can handle a little more,” the one bleeding out spits.

“Don’t kill her,” the one clearly in charge orders, and all hell breaks loose again.

I dart backward and whip the door open, only for my head to be slammed against the frame by his massive, rough hand. I’m halfway out, but the step is slippery, causing my foot to slide against the concrete. His hand snaps out for me, but he only manages to get my cardigan. I rip my arms from it, and his hold goes slack as he fires a string of curse words at me.

Fight.

I find my balance, and as he tosses the sweater aside to reach for me again, I lean back, letting him through the threshold, and I slam the storm door on his arm as hard as I can. He screams out in pain as the old metal catches his forearm. It bounces off his skin back towards me, and I steady myself before kicking hard and sending it back in for another clumsy hit.

I slip, falling to my knees in the rain, but crawl through the mud of the empty flower bed beneath me. The garage is another ten feet, and I barely find purchase in the mud to get to my feet. Upright, I move faster, the rain beats down on the newly formed cuts and bruises with a stinging throb as I push the door open and slam it closed behind me. I rip the tarp back and clumsily fish the keys from the rusted toolbox. Koa’s bright red Hemi Cuda stares at me, and I pray it starts as I rip open the door and fall inside.

Ipush open the heavy door of the garage and loop the chain before stepping outside into the hazy orange light of the rising sun. The sky is clear—for now. The cloud set on the horizon brings the promise of much needed rainfall that the Arizona desert begs for, but it also brings trouble.

Nothing good ever comes with the rain.

Last night’s music hums at a dull thrum over the sound system behind me. I turn to look at the garage and sigh. It’s a mess from the three vehicles we have loaded in the bays, and whatever my brothers were up to last night only made it worse. Rafe is asleep in nothing but a pair of Looney Tune boxers and his boots on the old twill couch we pulled out of the dumpster years before. Murphy is beneath him sprawled out on his stomach across cushions he’d pulled off the couch, drool pooling around his cheek and his glasses crookedly pushed into his dark hair.

“I don’t even want to know,” I grunt as I walk toward them. I give Murphy a kick in the foot and he startles awake like he’s been shot.

“I wasn’t sleeping, you were sleeping…” he mumbles and tips back down to the cushions.

“Get up or you’re both fired,” I shoot back and start to clear the bench behind the mini van we have to finish for pick up today.