“Sabrina! Sabrina, can you hear me? Sabrina!”
She lifted her gaze from the bodies of the men she’d killed to see Gabriel struggle to his knees. He crawled toward her, looking somewhat the worse for wear.
“Are you with me, sweetheart?” He gently took the gun from Sabrina’s hand and shoved it in his waist holster. She blinked at him, thinking that there was something they had to do. “We need to get out of here. Can you run?” Gabriel asked, and she snapped out of it as the world rushed back in all at once. She heard scrabbling coming from the top of the ravine and saw three more men, one of them Patrick, clambering down the slope. Shit!
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.” Sabrina gripped his arm tightly.
“We gotta run.” Gabriel pulled her up and away from the car.
“Wait! What about Jimmy!” she cried, horrified at the thought of leaving him. Gabriel glanced at her face, his expression tortured as he pulled her around the car and into the brush.
“I don’t know if he’s okay, but we have to go anyway. Patrick saw us down here.”
Sabrina shook her head even as she went with him, unable to bear the thought of leaving Jimmy. Gabriel knew and dragged her faster, looking as broken-hearted as a man could. They stumbled out of the undergrowth and onto a game trail.
“We have to keep going!” he insisted, still holding her hand. Sabrina wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince her or himself. “And if Jimmy is okay, maybe Patrick and his men will be so obsessed with us, they’ll leave him alone.”
She knew he was right. She shook off her grief and began to run with him instead of pulling back, careening down the trail, not even noticing her bare feet anymore. She tried not to think about Jimmy, knowing they needed to get away. They ran. Branches hit the bare skin of her arms and face, but she felt nothing, only flinching when they heard a shot. Gabriel stumbled for a moment before smoothing out again.
“You can’t get away, Gabriel, you faggot!” Patrick yelled, sounding close. Sabrina didn’t break stride. Gabriel clutched her hand tighter and ran until she stumbled on a tree root and fell, pulling them both down. A shot hit a branch above them, raining wood chips in her face. She struggled to clear her eyes and get to her feet, knowing that Patrick and his men were nearly on top of them. Another bullet plowed into the tree next to the trail while Gabriel squirmed on the ground. For a moment she thought he was hit, but then she saw his hands come up in front of him with the small gun she’d used back at the ravine. He sighted along his arms and squeezed off two shots. She looked back down the trail and saw the two men with Patrick fall. The agent ducked behind a tree as Gabriel tried to shoot again, but all she heard was a click when he pulled the trigger.
“Fuck!” he exclaimed. Sabrina flinched, and Gabriel flung the weapon away in disgust. When she looked up again, Patrick stood over them, pointing a very large, very bleak-looking gun at Gabriel’s head.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he sneered.
Gabriel stared up defiantly. “What, just because your son is queer you think I deserve to die?” he asked contemptuously. Patrick’s eyes glazed over, a fanatical light entering his gaze. Sabrina began searching the ground surreptitiously, looking for a rock, a stick, anything to fling at him to distract him.
“All you homosexuals deserve to die.” Patrick’s arm never wavered as Sabrina closed her hands on a rock the size of her fist. She was lying partially behind Gabriel, so she hoped Patrick couldn’t see what she was doing.
“So, you’re going to let bigotry ruin your career.” Gabriel glared at his former partner. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’m not throwing my career away. I’m fixing it. Everything was going just fine until my goddamn wife divorced me, sucking away all my money to give to that disgusting spawn of hers.” Patrick breathed harshly. “You don’t deserve to live. It’s because of you that I had to start taking money from those fucking druggies. It’s because of you that I lost my son. It’s because of you that my wife divorced me,” he ranted as Sabrina inched her hand out from behind Gabriel.
At this point, any action was better than sitting there waiting for Patrick to run out of steam and shoot them both. She tensed her arm, breathing a quick prayer, then threw the rock at the madman’s face. As soon as it hit, Gabriel launched himself at Patrick’s legs, dragging him to the ground. They rolled around and Sabrina watched in sick fascination, head throbbing, as they wrestled for control of the gun. She was afraid to move, afraid to say anything that would break Gabriel’s concentration when he suddenly, shockingly, crushed Patrick’s hand against a rock, making the gun skitter off the trail. Sabrina dived for it, ignoring the men who were now a lot more equally matched.
She scrambled off the ground and swayed for a moment, unable to get a clear shot. Then, to her horror, Patrick seized the rock with his left hand and began bashing Gabriel in the head. It’s now or never, Sabrina thought as she clutched the gun firmly, trying to control her shaking. She focused, then pulled the trigger and watched a balloon of red appear in the middle of Patrick’s back. Gabriel lay wheezing on the ground as the agent slumped on top of him, unmoving. Sabrina dropped the gun from suddenly nerveless fingers. The kickback from this weapon is quite a bit larger than the other one, she found herself thinking inanely. Then she dropped to her knees, a surge of nausea running through her, but nothing happened. After a second, she realized she was crying.
“Sweetheart,” Gabriel croaked. Sabrina gasped and scrambled over to help shove Patrick away. Gabriel had several gashes in his forehead from where the other agent had tried to kill him. “Oh sweetheart, don’t cry, I’m all right, see? Don’t cry, don’t cry.” She flung herself into his arms, careful not to squeeze too hard. “You saved my life,” he whispered into her ear. Sabrina sobbed harder, then pulled away to look at his face.
“Just returning the favor,” she said, trying to smile around her tears, hardly believing it was all over. Gabriel laughed and hugged her again. She heard the sound of sirens in the distance and hoped that someone would come help them get out of the woods because she didn’t think she could walk at this point. Then she moved away slightly, still crying, and looked into Gabriel’s eyes.
“We have to go see if Jimmy’s okay,” Sabrina said, and Gabriel nodded, the smile falling from his face. They stumbled upright, leaning on each other as they turned back to the trail, ignoring the bodies, only slowing when they came to the first turn in the trail. Sabrina trembled, wondering if there could be any more men. Gabriel gripped her tightly as he looked around. When she heard gravel shifting they both froze. No! she thought, not sure she could handle any more violence. Sabrina wanted to find somewhere safe and just lie down with her two men near, and she was horribly afraid that would never again be possible.
“Hey, you two going somewhere?” a gravelly voice asked. Sabrina gasped, then froze as Gabriel choked back a cry. As they stood there, too stunned to move, Jimmy limped into view, loosely cradling an ugly black gun in his left hand. His right arm was cut and his head was bleeding, but he was alive! Sabrina felt tears slide down her face.
“Jimmy?” Sabrina and Gabriel lurched forward as Jimmy dropped the weapon, and they crashed into him, all three of them shaking. “I thought we’d lost you forever,” she heard herself saying dimly, kissing Jimmy while Gabriel buried his head in Jimmy’s neck, brokenly repeating I love you against the other man’s skin.
Jimmy shook his head, holding them both close. “Nah. You can’t get rid of me that easily.”
Then Gabriel seized Jimmy’s hair and dragged the other man’s face close enough to kiss. Sabrina cried and laughed and couldn’t tell where one man began and the other ended. When Gabriel pulled back both men looked at her for a moment, then leaned over and kissed her at the same time. Sabrina closed her eyes in gratitude.