Free Zero at the Bone by Jane Seville Page B

careful.
    He watched Jack through the windows of the dingy little gas station as he perused what had to be a limited pop selection. D shifted his weight, the comforting heft of the gun in his belt pressing into his lower back. He wondered if Jack had ever shot a gun.
    Probably not; didn’t seem the type for sport-shooting, and he’d have no reason to do it otherwise.
    D cleared his throat, eyes automatically picking out the lines of sight and the cover.
    The hair on the back of his neck was standing up. He was getting that feeling. The cornered-animal feeling. The rush of the gas from the nozzle, the dry chilly desert air, the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead, it felt like every ambush he’d ever set up.
    Then he saw it. The barest glimmer, a reflection off something shiny, around the corner of the gas station. He wandered nonchalantly a few yards away to light a cigarette and saw that it was the bumper of a car, parked behind the building where cars weren’t supposed to park.
    Jack came out of the gas station, walking straighter with his hair back in place, carrying a couple of bottles of soda. “No clerk,” he said, frowning. “I waited and yelled, but there wasn’t anybody there. I just left the cash.” D nodded. “Get in the car,” he said quietly. “Driver’s seat.”
    “What, my turn to drive?”
    “We ain’t alone here. Don’t look around.”
    To his credit, Jack stayed calm and didn’t look around. “The clerk…?”
    “Already dead.”
    “How’d they find us?” Jack whispered, acting like he was counting out change to D. Pretty good cover, Doc.
    “Dunno. Don’t matter right now.” In his head, D was wondering where on the car the tracker was.
    “What do I do?” Jack said. He met D’s eyes for a moment, his own wide and scared.
    “Jus’ get ready ta get us outta here. You’ll know when.” Jack went around to the driver’s side and got in. D pulled the still-gushing nozzle out of the fuel tank and tossed it to the ground, well clear of their car, the hold-open catch letting gas puddle around the base of the pumps.
    Two dark-clothed men suddenly materialized from the brush at the sides of the parking lot and rushed him, much more boldly than D had been expecting. A silenced shot spanged off the iron support at his right. “Jack, get down!” D yelled. He put a bullet through the first one’s forehead and brought to bear on the second, but before he could fire he was wrenched around by what felt like a cannonball striking his chest, high under his left shoulder. He heard Jack shout his name. There was no pain, just a spreading numb pressure. He didn’t look down, just brought his gun back around and somehow hit the second guy, who went down.
    Now, the pain was coming. It was a lot worse than he’d always imagined it would be. D staggered against the car, his left arm useless. The second guy wasn’t dead. In fact it looked like he’d only winged him… but he had his legs in the puddle of gasoline. D

    36 | Jane Seville

    took a big drag on his cigarette to fire the ember and tossed it into the gas puddle, which went up with a low-frequency fwump that sent a wave of air pressure toward him.
    Jack had thrown himself across the front seat and now had the door open. “Get in!” he said. D somehow managed to collapse into the seat and shut the door. Jack squealed out of the gas station lot just in time for them to see the entire place explode in the rearview mirror. D saw with relief that the station and the car that had been parked behind it both went up in flames. Jack wasn’t wasting time watching; he was hauling ass away as fast as he could safely drive.
    D lay in the passenger seat, the world graying out around him. Suddenly Jack’s hand was clamped around his upper arm, bringing things back into focus. “How bad?” he asked.
    “Whut?”
    Jack tried to look over at him and see the wound, but he had to watch the road.
    “How bad is it? Are you bleeding out?”
    D