Guardian Ranger (Shadow Agents #2)(30)
Author: Cynthia Eden

She was trapped in the car.

Mommy wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving? Daddy?

The nightmare of her past tangled with her present.

Veronica’s hands were against the dashboard. Broken glass was all around her.

Mommy had been bleeding. She’d been so still.

The seat belt bit into her shoulder.

She couldn’t get out of her seat. She was strapped in and she screamed and screamed because something was wrong. She couldn’t get out.

Her fingers fumbled. There was a click, and then the seat belt slid free. Her body sagged forward. The truck was at some kind of angle—it had slid down a little ravine and slammed into a tree.

Her forehead was wet. Her fingers lifted. Blood?

Daddy had been bleeding.

Her fingers fisted. She shoved the memory back into her mind. She wasn’t a child anymore. And she wasn’t alone.

Her head whipped to the right. “Jasper?” He was slumped over the steering wheel, not moving.

Had he been hurt in the crash or…no, before the crash. The memory of those desperate moments flooded through her. That sound that she’d heard hadn’t been thunder. It had been a gunshot. One that had blasted through the windshield—and hit Jasper.

Carefully now, so very carefully, she pushed him back. The sunlight spilled through the broken windows so that she could clearly see his blood-soaked chest. “Jasper!” This time, her cry was desperate.

His lashes fluttered. “Ver…onica? What…happened?”

“Someone shot us.” You. She tried to find his wound, but there was so much blood. She needed to put pressure on the wound. She had to stop the blood. That was what people always did on TV shows. Apply pressure. Stop the bleeding.

His eyes looked bleary. “Get…out…”

She leaned toward him. She was so scared that her whole body shook. “What? What is it?” There was a huge gash near the right side of his forehead.

“Have to…get out…shooter…coming…”

Her heart stopped.

“Disabled…vehicle…sitting duck…”

She didn’t want to be a sitting duck, but Jasper had to be suffering from some kind of head trauma if he thought she was just going to run off and leave him there alone. Because then he’d be the sitting duck.

Her gaze flew around the truck’s interior. Where was his cell phone? Hers? She fumbled next to his seat, found what she thought was his phone and—smashed.

His eyes began to sag closed again. “Go…”

The hell she was just going to leave him. They’d both go. She’d drag him out if she had to.

And I think I have to.

Veronica turned away from him and shoved against her door. It wasn’t budging. She shoved again and again, and then she angled her body and kicked.

The door finally groaned open.

“Hold on,” she told Jasper as she turned back to touch his cheek once more. Her fingers were covered with his blood. “I’m coming around to get you. We’ll both get out of here.” Somehow.

If she could just find her phone, maybe it would work and she could get Wyatt out there. He could help them.

She eased from the truck, glanced to the left, then the right. She didn’t see anyone, but then, she hadn’t seen the shooter, either. The blast had just exploded in the truck, wrecking her world.

Daddy…Daddy!

The memories just wouldn’t stay buried. Her fingers curled over the door and she started to slide around the vehicle. The truck had crashed down in the small ravine, which definitely wasn’t an advantage. A shooter could come up from higher ground and easily take them both out.

Jasper had been right. They were sitting ducks.

She eased toward the back of the truck. She bent low, trying to stay as covered as she could and—

Hard arms wrapped around her. Veronica opened her mouth to scream as she was yanked back against a strong chest. Her scream never escaped. A hand was pushed over her mouth, and the scream emerged as just a whimper of sound that was stifled beneath rough fingers. She kicked back with her legs and twisted frantically as she tried to escape that steely grip.

“Shhh…Ronnie, it’s me.”

The familiar voice froze her.

And terrified her.

Because it was her brother’s voice.

“We have to get out of here,” Cale said. His mouth was close to her ear. “The shooter’s close, and I can’t risk him taking a shot at you.” His hold eased on her. His hand slipped away from her mouth. “Come on.” His voice was the quietest of whispers. “We’ll circle back and stay low behind the brush near the—”

“I’m not leaving Jasper.” Her own voice was hushed, and she could barely hear it over the frantic beating of her heart. She wanted to grab Cale, to hold him tight, but she had to take care of Jasper. He needed her. “He’s hurt, Cale,” she said as she turned to face her brother. “We have to get him out of that truck, get him to safety—”

“Step the hell…away from her.” Jasper’s voice. Coming from right behind her.

She whirled and found him standing near the back of the vehicle, his face pale, his bloody shirt clinging to his chest.

He was also holding a gun. A gun that he had aimed right at her brother.

Veronica stepped into that line of fire. “Jasper, what are you doing? Cale is here to help us.” She refused to acknowledge the fleeting terror she’d felt when she first heard his voice.

“Did you think the shot…took me out? That it was…safe to come and…get Veronica?” Jasper rasped.

The gun was aimed at Veronica now.

“Lower that weapon,” Cale snarled.

Jasper lifted his left hand. Held his palm out to her. “Come here, Veronica.”

If she moved, he’d have a clear shot at Cale. Cale was the only family she had. “Cale didn’t do this,” she said. “Jasper, you’re hurt. Give me the gun and let us help you. Cale can give us cover—we can all get out of here alive.”

Jasper shook his head. His eyes weren’t on her. His gaze was focused over her shoulder. On Cale. “I don’t…think…the plan is for us all to get out.”

Cale swore behind her. His hands rose to her shoulders. He was trying to move her to the side. To get her out of Jasper’s range.

She wasn’t going easily.

Cale’s grip tightened on her. “You’ve got a head wound, man. You don’t know that you can take a clear shot.” Cale’s voice was ice-cold, but she still heard the hot fury undermining the words. He always became colder when he was angry. “You could hit her.”