Outside, the gunfire turned meaner.
Not closer exactly—meaner. More desperate. The kind of shooting that said one pack of wolves had run face-first into another and both had decided there weren’t enough bones on the ground for sharing. From the floor, with glass all over the office and plaster dust hanging in the air like dirty fog, I could hear the whole ugly thing unfolding in layers. Sharp, disciplined rifle bursts from one side. Wilder, faster return fire from the other. Men yelling over engines. Doors slamming. Tires chirping black across Main Street. Then a scream in Spanish cut loose outside and got swallowed by another burst of automatic fire.
Lucas inched up just enough to peek over the overturned chair, then ducked right back down when a round snapped through the broken front glass and buried itself in the wall. “Lord have mercy.”
“Keep your fool head down,” I barked.
He pressed flatter to the floor than a flapjack under a cast iron skillet.
Mari was already on the move. She slid behind the side of my desk, drew her sidearm, and stole a quick look through the jagged remains of the front window. The last light of evening came through there now in crooked slashes, flashing off shattered glass, pooling red on the floor like the room had already been cut open. Her face tightened.
“It ain’t just one group,” she said. “There’s at least two vehicles out there. Maybe three.”
Another voice ripped across the street outside, high and furious.
Spanish.
Then came the answer from farther left, clipped and barking and cold as steel.
Chinese.
Even if I hadn’t heard those same hard-edged syllables a moment earlier, I would’ve known then. This mess at Lucas’s barn had not ended at the barn. It had rolled straight into my town and up to my front porch, and now every bastard with a stake in that machine was trying to claw it back.
But I needed the damn thing. So, they’d have to wait their turn.
Mary Barton had curled herself into a ball behind the desk, both hands over the back of her head, trembling so hard I could hear her teeth chatter between bursts. Her blouse sleeve was streaked with dust where I’d dragged her down. She looked up at me once with eyes so wide and scared it near broke my heart.
“Dallas,” she whispered. “I hope Tom won’t try to be a hero.”
Tom was Mary’s husband. She was right to be concerned. Tom was about as bright as a tarnished penny, but he loved his wife and would fight like hell to save her. That is when the excuses started talkin’ loud in my brain. Yeah, Tom might come. I better draw these soldiers away. It’s the right thing to do. For the town.
I was preferring lies now because the truth was ugly.
Plus, if they stayed focused on killing each other outside, we had a sliver. A narrow, God-forsaken sliver. But if either side regrouped long enough to come in and search room by room, we were cooked. We had handguns, one rancher with smoke still in his clothes, one secretary near frozen by terror, one deputy with grit enough for ten people, and me holding the only prize worth dying over.
The goggles were still on the floor beside my desk where I’d set them. Black frame. Dark lenses. Innocent as a sleeping snake.
Lucas saw me looking. “Sheriff.”
I crawled over and snatched the case off the chair where he’d left it. Set the goggles inside. Closed the lid. The latches clicked shut under my thumbs.
That small sound seemed louder than the gunfire.
Mari’s head turned quick and shouted over the noise. “What are you doing?”
“What I should’ve done the second Lucas walked in.”
“Which is?”
“Getting it the hell out of here.”
She stared at me like I’d just announced I was fixing to jog naked through a hailstorm. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind?”
“Likely.” I shoved the case under my arm and checked the hall leading toward the side exit. “I will draw them away. It is the goggles they want. Well, they’re gonna have to chase me to get them.”
Another blast of gunfire rattled the windows along the side wall. Somewhere outside, metal screamed against metal. One of the patrol units parked at the curb let out a car alarm in one long panicked wail.
Then came more shouting.
A man in Spanish hollered something that sounded like, “Las gafas. Las gafas.”
I knew Spanish enough to know that that meant. The goggles.
From the other side of the street, someone answered in Chinese so harsh and fast it sounded like gravel poured into a fan.
Lucas swallowed hard. “They know it’s here.”
“They think it’s here,” I said.
There’s a difference, and in my line of work, difference keeps folks alive.
I edged up just enough to steal a glance through the lower corner of the shattered window. The street outside looked like the devil’s own traffic jam. Headlights skewed across storefront glass. One black SUV sat crooked with both driver-side doors hanging open. Another vehicle farther down had slammed nose-first into the rear of Mary’s little sedan, shoving it halfway onto the curb. Muzzle flashes winked from behind the open doors, some low and controlled, some wild and jumpy. I caught a glimpse of one man in tactical green ducking behind a mailbox, then another in a dark shirt sprinting across the feed store entrance before a burst chased sparks off the brick beside him.
They weren’t charging us anymore.
They were too busy trying to kill each other before somebody else made off with the prize.
That was our chance.
I dropped back to the floor. “Listen to me. They’ve shifted. Cartel boys likely think the Chinese still have the device, or they’re trying to stop ’em from taking it back. Either way, they’re tangled up now.”
Mari shook her head. “And you wanna crawl out into that?”
“We all leave while they are distracted. I will make sure they follow me. You all go in the opposite direction. Fast.”
She looked toward the side hall, then back to me. She already knew the plan made sense. She just hated it. Truth be told, so did I.
Her eyes flashed. “You think your the only person who has problems? You don’t get to play martyr just ‘cause you’re sad.”
That hit where it was aimed.
Lucas looked from one to the other of us like he was watching a fuse burn toward dynamite. “I hate to break up the date, but if w don’t decide soon we’re all dead meat.”
Outside, another scream. Another burst. Then the deep whump of something heavier than rifles. Not a grenade maybe, but close enough to make the floor twitch under my elbows.
Dust drifted down from the ceiling tiles.
Mari leaned closer, voice dropping. “Don’t do this.”
I met her eyes. Brown and fierce and scared in a way she’d never admit out loud. “I ain’t got much choice.”
“You do.”
“No, ma’am. Not anymore.”
Her face changed at that. Something in it softened, then tightened again. She knew I wasn’t just talking about the gunfight. She knew where my mind had been the second that machine showed me it could reach forward and backward. She knew I was already partway down that road to Sparkwood and Route 21, whether I admitted it or not.
“Dallas,” she said, and now her voice had gone low and rough, the kind folks use at gravesides or in hospital rooms. “Hannah is gone.”
I didn’t answer.
She swallowed. Tried again. “Maybe… maybe the Lord’s got ways of lettin’ folks see each other again that don’t involve this.”
There it was.
Not plain. Not preachy. Just laid there between us quiet.
Maybe you’ll see Hannah again someday.
Not through lenses.
Not through stolen time.
Not by breaking yourself open on old sorrow.
Someday.
For a second, it hit me hard enough I couldn’t breathe. Memories flooded in of Hannah in church light. Hannah beyond all this mess. Hannah where no road killed her and no pride drove her off and no fool husband stood too stubborn to say what should’ve been said.
Then another burst of gunfire tore across the front wall and jerked us all back into the world as it was.
I looked away from Mari first.
“We can do church later,” I muttered.
“That ain’t a no.”
“It ain’t a yes either.”
Mary made a small sound behind the desk. “Please don’t leave us.”
That one hurt.
I turned enough to see her there, gray-faced and shaking, one heel kicked off, hair hanging loose, trying her level best not to come apart. Lucas looked near as bad, though he hid it with that rancher stubbornness. And Mari—Lord, Mari—she was doing math with fear and duty and loyalty all at once, trying to figure how to keep everybody alive when the man in charge had already made up his mind.
“I’m not abandoning you,” I said. “I’m drawing the hornets off.”
“That sounds a whole lot like leaving,” Lucas muttered.
I pointed at him. “You stay with Mari. Do exactly what she says. If the shooting thins, she gets Mary to the rear records room and locks it down till backup shows. You armed?”
He shook his head.
“Mari, get this ol’ boy a sidearm.”
She nodded once, slow.
I looked at the radio. It had taken a round through the console.
“Use the handheld in the records room if it still works. Call county. Call state. Call the dang National Guard for all I care. But don’t you come after me till this street cools.”
Her mouth tightened into a line so hard it looked cut with a knife. “You think I’m just gonna let you crawl out there alone?”
“I think you’ve got the stones to protect these folks.”
For once, flattery got me nowhere.
She reached out and grabbed my forearm before I could turn away. Strong grip. Trembling just a little.
“Dallas.”
I stopped.
“Don’t make this the thing that kills you before tomorrow gets here.”
I held her gaze a second, then gently pulled free.
“Reckon I’ll try not to.”
Another burst sounded closer now, followed by running feet outside and the crunch of glass under boots. The side hall lay open behind me, dim and narrow, leading toward the rear offices and then the side exit where my cruiser sat in the lot beyond. If I could reach that door, maybe—just maybe—I could get the machine moving before either side understood I’d slipped out.
No more talking.
No more waiting.
I tucked the case tight under my chest, flattened myself to the floor, and started crawling toward the exit.
Tune in next week for Chapter 3 – Part C. Take Advantage of this limited offer from Creation Press. The first 100 free subscribers will automatically be upgraded to a paid account for one year.