Chapter 3: Home
976 Words
Leo' Pov
The bullet is still in my shoulder.
Not deep, whoever took that shot was good but the angle was off, caught me on the move, and the round didn't go far enough in to do the real damage it was meant to do. I know this because I've had bullets in worse places and I know the difference between a nuisance and a problem. This is a nuisance. A painful, bleeding nuisance that is currently soaking through the left side of my jacket and dripping onto the snow.
I press my hand harder against it and keep walking.
The cabin is twenty minutes from the trail on a good day. Tonight, with the snow coming down like this and my left arm doing what it's doing, it's going to be closer to thirty. The cabin sits at the edge of the lower Rodriguez territory, far enough from the estate to be private, close enough to be useful. I use it when I want to be somewhere that isn't the estate.
I use it a lot.
The snow is covering my tracks behind me which is good. Whoever was on that ridge, and they were good, whoever they were, good enough that I didn't hear them until the shot was already in the air.
I would know if they were following.
Whatever happened up on that ridge, it's over. For tonight.
I push through the last line of trees and the cabin appears out of the dark, small, dark wood, one light visible through the window that I left on when I came out this afternoon.
Inside it's warm. I get the door closed and the deadbolt thrown and I stand in the middle of the room for a moment while the heat starts working on the cold in my bones.
Then I take my jacket off and look at my shoulder.
Through the shirt: dark and wet, a clean entry and no exit which confirms what I already suspected. I pull the shirt over my head and get my kit from under the sink, full kit, always, Luka's rule since we were teenagers, you are never somewhere without the means to deal with a problem. I sit down at the table and I get to work.
Bullet extraction is not a pleasant process when you are doing it yourself. I've done it three times. Each time I tell myself I'll be more careful next time and each time something happens anyway. Tonight the something was a squirrel, I saw it scatter off the trail right before the shot came and I moved left instead of right and the bullet caught me in the shoulder instead of the chest.
I owe that squirrel something.
I find the bullet in less than a minute, shallow, like I thought, a clean extraction and then the long unpleasant business of cleaning the wound. I do all of it methodically, the way I was taught, not thinking about the pain because thinking about pain makes it worse and I have better things to think about.
Like who was on that ridge.
The angle of the shot tells me the ridge, east side, prone position, so they were set up and waiting, which means they knew my route, which means they've been watching this territory long enough to map my habits. The shot itself tells me professional. This was contract work.
Someone paid someone to come into Rodriguez territory and put a bullet in me.
The list of people willing to do that is not short. The list of people with the resources to hire someone good enough to almost pull it off is shorter.
I tape the dressing and pull a clean shirt from the drawer I keep stocked here and I sit back in the chair and I pour two fingers of whiskey and I look at the fire.
The shooter missed. They're gone.
Tomorrow I'll pull the security footage from the ridge cameras and I'll find out exactly who was up there.
My phone goes off at three in the morning.
Luka.
I answer on the second ring.
"You're awake," he says.
"A bullet in the shoulder will do that."
Silence. Then: "How bad."
"Dealt with. I'm at the cabin." I lean back in the chair. "You're awake too. What's wrong."
He doesn't answer immediately.
I wait.
Outside the snow has stopped. The woods are completely silent.
"I found someone," he says. "On the east path. At the bottom of the ravine."
I sit up straighter.
"Found someone," I repeat. "What kind of someone."
Another pause. Longer this time.
I've known Luka my entire life. I know the sound of him being careful. I know the sound of him being angry and the sound of him being tired and the specific silence he uses when he's in a room full of people and can't say what he actually means.
I have never heard him sound like this.
"Luka." I put the glass down. "What kind of someone."
When he speaks again his voice is exactly the same as it always is. Same level. Not any different from every other conversation we've ever had.
Which is how I know.
"I think you need to come home," he says.
My shoulder is throbbing and the fire is burning low and outside the window the woods are white and silent. I am looking at the far wall of the cabin and I am thinking about a rifle shot from a ridge and the east path and the ravine and the specific sound of my brother's voice just now.
"Luka," I say slowly. "Did you find your mate?"
The silence that follows is the longest one yet.
"Come home, Leo," he says.
He hangs up.
I stare at my phone for a long moment
Then I start looking for my keys.
- Writer
