Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 21 of 33

The first shots came fast. Too fast. Scarlett saw two men break from the tree line and John dropped one before she found her sight. Marcus fired twice from the shed and a second man folded at the wall. A third tried the gate and hit Maranda's red powder. His foot caught. John shot him. Two more came from the ridge road and Marcus took them both with the rifle braced on the sandbags. Five down in under a minute. Scarlett's ears rang. The garden smelled like burned powder and turned dirt. "Two left," John said into the radio. "Behind the split rock. Pinned." Scarlett watched the rock. Nothing moved. Nothing would move, not while four guns held the gate. But the gate was all they had. No trench behind it. No second wall. If those two waited for dark and rushed the line, her people had nowhere to fall back to. The house was open ground away. She had built forward and forgotten backward. She keyed the radio. "Hold the gate. Don't follow me out." "Scarlett." John's voice, tight. "No." "Hold the gate." She set the radio down. "I draw them. You drop them when they show." She climbed the sandbags before he could cross to her. Her boots hit the dirt on the wrong side of the wall. She walked ten paces into open ground and stopped. "You came for Maranda," she called. "Come talk." A man stood up from behind the rock. Then another, further left. Both had rifles low. "We're here for the witch," the first one said. "Nobody else has to die for her. Walk away." "None of my friends get hurt tonight," Scarlett said. She raised the revolver and shot the first man in the head. He dropped straight down. The second was fast. She saw the muzzle flash before she heard it. Something hit her left wrist and spun the pistol out of her hand. She went to one knee. John's rifle cracked from the gate. The second man fell across the rock and did not move. Scarlett looked at her wrist. The bullet had gone through clean. Blood ran down her fingers into the dirt. She could not fix it. She had never been able to fix herself. John was over the wall and running. Marcus was already calling clear on the radio. Maranda came out of the house with cloth in her hands. "Inside," John said. He got an arm under Scarlett's shoulder. "Now." "Count the bodies," Scarlett said. "All seven." "Seven," Marcus said in her ear. "All down." John lifted her. She kept her wrist pressed against her vest so the blood stayed off the beds. The gate had held. The line had held. And she had learned, too late, that the next fight would need a wall behind her, not just in front.