Kirk glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "Looked like that packed a wallop. You alright?"
Jason tried to see the right side of his chest where the impact had been, before letting his head flop back down again. "I think so. That's gonna leave a bruise."
"And his sense of humor is still in tact." Kirk nodded with satisfaction before turning back to keep his eye on the surroundings.
Jason's eyes found Katie's again as he just lay there, trying to recover. "This poor jacket has so many holes in it." His hand found hers and gave it a squeeze. He really was hurting. It was far from fatal, but the fall hadn't done his already-wounded shoulder any good, and Rick was still going to have to make sure he had no damage from this incident even if the bullet hadn't penetrated the armor.
Pete nodded to Jamie. "Three." Turning the corner along with her, he peered down the long, dead-end alley, now seeing the sniper in full-view. "Freeze!"
The man, dressed in black and carrying a rifle over his back, ducked behind a dumpster, forcing Pete and Jamie to advance, guns drawn. "Show yourself!" Pete barked.
As they slowly approached, nothing could be seen - until the man stepped out with his own handgun drawn. A shot was fired, but it wasn't his. The gun ricocheted to the side, and the man grabbed his hand in pain. Pete's eyes went wide, and he glanced up. Con stood on top of the building, six stories up, his pistol still drawn and aiming at the sniper. "Hey, guys," he called down. "What took you so long?"
Pete rolled his eyes and glanced at Jamie. "How do you put up with him?" He holstered his gun, but motioned for Jamie to keep hers out, just in case. "Alright, buddy. Time for a little ride." The man was tall and slender - no one they had encountered before, and he didn't utter a word as his hands were cuffed behind his back. His face wore an angry scowl. He knew he'd been beat and there was no way he could fight himself out of this one.
Pushing him down the alley and out into the open, Pete communicated with the others. "Jamie and I have him in custody. Nate, wanna swing by with the car? I don't wanna drag him through public and cause a-"
His sentence was cut off as without warning, the sniper collapsed to the ground.
"What the..." Pete looked down at him where blood was oozing from a hole in the center of his forehead. Someone using a silencer had just killed their prisoner. "Whoa, whoa, everybody on guard." He knelt to get a lower stance next to Jamie as they scanned the area. Any nearby pedestrians had scattered in fright, and no shooter could be seen. "Sniper's dead and we have no visual. Anybody else?"
The responses were all the same. "Negative."
"Katie and Kirk, you better get Jason out of here and back to headquarters. Nate...watch your step coming over here and prepare to pick up a dead body. I guess someone didn't want him talking." Pete glanced at Jamie with concern. They hadn't been prepared for this one. Garret had been so sure there had just been one sniper. What else had he been wrong about?
JT didn't like it that Bree wasn't going to eat, but he wouldn't argue with her right now. As a doctor, he wanted to make sure she stayed healthy, but for the moment, dealing with the situation emotionally was more important, so he'd let her be. "Okay. I'll be up in a few hours and we'll go from there." Hopefully he'd hear back from Con in the meantime and maybe come up with some new ideas.
Once upstairs and lying in bed, his eyes closed almost immediately, but he couldn't rest quite yet. Grabbing his phone, he started a text message to Amanda before he fell asleep.
Sorry. Rain check on supper?
Gunner issues.
Again.
He took off and we can't
find him.
Later, Gunner wouldn't even remember which route he'd taken. The passing traffic went dangerously unnoticed, as did all sense of time. The scenery was blurred as his tears continued to fall. Bree was his entire world, and he had just walked away forever. He had left behind the one person who held his heart together and it hurt like nothing else ever had.
Finally recognizing he could barely even drive anymore, he found an abandoned side road and pulled off to park. Folding his arms on the steering wheel, he buried his face to muffle his sobs. How had he done this? How had he torn not only his world in half, but Bree's too? She deserved so much more than this. So much more than someone like him.
His cries of anguish would be heard by no one else, and eventually he would be forced into an agonizing sleep until he would awaken to continue his journey...a journey where he knew nothing but sorrow, and where he loathed himself.
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