Shatter by Joan Swan Page A

training was a suicide mission.
    “Stop or I’ll shoot you,” Mitch warned.
    The bastard grinned at Mitch past Halina’s legs. Then slid his hand up her thigh and beneath her robe. A spurt of fury raised Mitch’s blood pressure.
    “I’m going to empty my clip into you, bastard. And I’ll enjoy every bullet. Halina,” Mitch yelled. “Halina, wake up .”
    “She’s out, man. I gave her enough shit to keep her out for days.”
    But Halina flopped sideways, attempting to struggle.
    “Halina, Dex needs you,” Mitch called, closing fast and taking aim as far away from her body as possible. “Dex is hurt. He needs you.”
    A sound gurgled up from her throat and she thrashed in Abernathy’s arms. He held on to her, but she threw him off balance just enough.
    Mitch’s stomach clenched. He squeezed the trigger.
    Abernathy grunted. Blood immediately drenched a splotch on his jeans. He glanced down, muttered, “Sonofabitch,” and stumbled.
    Mitch sprinted for Halina. Grabbed a handful of her robe and jerked. She pulled from Abernathy’s grasp and crumpled to the dock at the same time the other man tipped backward. He hit the water flat on his back, a glassy look in his blue eyes, the weapon still in his hand.
    Mitch dropped to one knee beside Halina. He kept his gun aimed at the water while searching her body for injury with the other hand, praying his bullet hadn’t grazed her. His heart was beating so hard it pushed the air from his lungs. But he found no liquid warmth, no stickiness, just lots of smooth, warm skin. Thank God. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever felt.
    “Hali.” He gripped her face, darted a sweep over the dark water’s surface. Abernathy should have surfaced screaming by now. But he’d vanished. “Hali, wake up. Wake up for Dex. He needs you.”
    She didn’t stir.
    Mitch lifted her into his arms—definitely lighter than Dex—and cast one more suspicious glance across the water’s surface before backing off the dock and rushing to the car, just yards away and still running. He dropped Halina in the passenger’s seat and scanned the area again, sure they hadn’t seen the last of Abernathy.
    The drive out of town took longer than necessary as he executed a series of turns, switchbacks, and circles just in case Abernathy had called in help. But Mitch couldn’t detect any tails. When the sirens started multiplying near the hotel, he hit the interstate.
    He drove with one hand on Halina’s wrist, her pulse beneath his fingers, calculating the rate by the dashboard clock. Sixty beats per minute—normal for someone in her physical condition. Her head was tilted toward him and he could feel her breath on his bicep, which also seemed normal. Still, it took a full five minutes before he could catch his own breath.
    “That was too damn close,” he whispered, his voice shaky.
    He took an exit in Tumwater and parked in the dark space between two overhead lights in the lot of a Jack in the Box. Tugging out his phone, he dialed Alyssa.
    “What’s wrong?” she answered, voice worried but serious, capable, ready to handle anything.
    “We were ambushed again.” Shit, he still couldn’t breathe right. “He got Halina and injected her with something. Some kind of sedative. He injected her dog too. He’s a German shepherd, weighs as much as Halina and means everything to her. I have them both, but, shit, Lys . . .” He raked a hand through his hair, panic slicing along his nerves like a razor. “What do I do ?”
    “Are you close to an emergency room?”
    “We can’t go near a hospital.” He didn’t know how many were involved yet. Didn’t know if Abernathy had called anyone else in. Didn’t even know where Abernathy was for sure. “We’d be dead in the parking lot.”
    “Okay,” she said, immediately detecting his frantic state and compensating with calm. “Her heart rate—”
    “Sixty.”
    “Good. And she’s breathing—”
    “Easy, steady.”
    “Good. Okay. You can