Chapter 14: Buckshot

Four shotguns pointed at us, and Niall's wide back stood between me and all of them.

"Move, boy," the oldest man said.

"No."

"The deal's dead. She walked out."

"She walked out because my father wanted her to."

"Move."

"Then shoot me."

I stepped out from behind him.

He caught my wrist. "Get back."

"I'm not hiding behind you."

"Maeve."

"I'm tired of being told where to stand."

The spotlight burned in my eyes.

I stood at his shoulder in the middle of Route 9 with a stolen notebook in my jeans and nowhere left to go.

One of the old men laughed.

He was the youngest of them, with a red nose, and he was the one who had put a shotgun shell through Niall's window.

He was drunk again.

"She's got the boy by the balls," he said. "Look at him. Caffrey's son, standing in the road for Wolf's whore."

I did not think.

I went for him.

Niall grabbed me around the waist and swung me behind him, and the drunk man's gun came up.

The boom hit the road like a door slamming.

Niall made a sound I had never heard from him.

He folded.

I caught him as he went down, and warm wet soaked into my sleeve.

"Niall!"

"Don't," he said through his teeth. "It's my arm. Don't."

The shot had caught him high on the left arm.

His sleeve was torn open, with blood running out of it fast, and small black holes pocked the skin.

"Who fired?" the oldest man shouted.

"He was going for the gun!"

"Who fired, you fool?"

"He was in front of her! I didn't."

"You shot Fergus's son."

The drunk man's mouth hung open.

He looked at his own hands.

I pulled Niall's shirt off my shoulders and wound it tight above the wound.

I pulled until he cried out.

"Look at me," I said. "Look at me, Niall."

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