Page 111 of All We Carry Home

We all ran over to the shed. Phantom disappeared behind the outbuilding, and a man’s cry echoed out. Phantom whinnied angrily, and Eva ran around the corner as if she’d broken free of someone’s grasp.

Phantom bolted away, now clear of the scuffle. The warrior.

I lifted my gun as a man raced after Eva. “Stop right there!” I called out.

I didn’t want him dead. I needed to know who he was, who sent him. I needed him to testify and put Victor and Keith behind bars. Only then would Eva be safe.

The man lifted his arm, and the metal barrel gleamed in his hand.

I launched toward Eva in a dead sprint as I pulled out my gun to return fire. But there wasn’t a clean shot. If my aim was off in the slightest, I could hit someone in the house behind them.

Another body lunged at her. He was closer. Eddie, coming from the back door of the house.

A gunshot rang out.

Eddie fell, knocking Eva out of the way.

Eva screamed.

I pivoted in the same instant to tackle the shooter, jolting the gun out of his hand. My own gun went skittering across the ground, out of reach.

He swung an elbow at me, slicing me across the cheekbone. Blood stung my eye, but I hit him with a solid left hook. He dropped to the ground, dazed.

Lucky jumped on him and grabbed his hands to control him.

“Captain,” Mason called out.

My racing heart screeched to a stop when I turned to see Eddie on the ground. Blood poured from a hole in the chest of his shirt.

“Warren, my bag,” Eva yelled. She scrambled to him and tore his shirt at the wound.

I reacted without thinking, racing into the house and grabbing her medical bag from the kitchen table.

“What’s going on?” Annie’s voice squeaked as she clutched a kitten.

“Stay in here, Annie. Please, just a while longer.” I held up a hand. “Everything will be all right.”

I raced back outside with the leather satchel.

Please, God, let everything be all right.

Twenty-Nine

Eva

My hands shook as I tore open Eddie’s shirt and looked for a way to stop the bleeding.

This wasn’t just a soldier on the surgeon’s table. This was Eddie. The man whose wife and children had only just been reunited an hour earlier.

Why had he jumped in front of the gun? It should have been me.

Warren returned and set my open bag beside me. “What do you need?”

“Hot water, clean cloths.”

He ran back into the house. Lucky and Mason both held the attacker down harshly, though I didn’t think he was waking anytime soon from Warren’s punch.

My breath was ragged, my throat still sore from where the man had grabbed me, dragging me behind the shed. I didn’t know where he’d come from or how he’d even made it through the layers of security.