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When I hit the far side of the house, I could see a up the driveway, and I knew I had just seconds tooverrun I stopped abruptly when the bodies came into view

Because there weren’t two

There were three

And the third was so fucking beat up, I had a hard ti him

“Hulk,” he groaned, reaching out a hand that was still clutching a pistol “Help”

I glanced at the e pool of blood in the packed dirt and the other was facedown, a bullet hole in the back of his head

“Woody,” I said, sighing as I dropped to my knees beside him “Put it down, bud”

His fingers slowly loosened around the grip of the pistol

“The fuck?” I asked, taking in his wounds

It looked like he’d been sliced with a knife up and down his arms and his face was so swollen I had no idea hoake and talking He also had unshot wounds in each of his shoulders I wasn’t even sure hoas stillhis arms

“Caughtdown the sides of his face “Didn’t help ’em Swear Didn’t help ’em”

“I know, bud,” I soothed, glancing behind“You don’t know anything, alright? Men picked you up, beat you up, dragged you here That’s all you know, right?”

“All I know,” he said in agreement

I’d just set round when two officers came around the side of the house

“Hands where we can see them!” one of the cops yelled as I lifted my arms up by my head

“I’m unarmed Shooters are down,” I yelled back

I’d never incop

They swarot it I understood that taking care of unshot victi else

I was just glad they were good at what they did

The cops were on us, asking questions and trying to work out some sort of timeline, but those of us eren’t hurt just watched anxiously as the paraiven a pretty clear account of what had happened when she’d called, because there were h ambulances in the driveway Within tena few of us sitting on the back porch, surrounded by blood and body bags

“What happened here?” a plain-clothes cop askedas they’d patted us down