Читать книгу Outcast - Joan Johnston - Страница 21

“Wake up, you sonofabitch!”

Ben felt himself falling off the bed and realized the sheet and blanket had been ripped out from under him. He hit the Aubusson carpet on his hands and knees, searching frantically for his XM107 .50 caliber long-range sniper rifle. Which wasn’t there.

A breath shuddered out of him as he reminded himself he was no longer in the desert. He was in his bedroom at The Seasons. And he stank with the foul sweat of someone scared shitless.

He’d been dreaming again. The same lousy dream. He looked at his shaking hands, expecting them to be covered with sticky red blood. His fingertips were callused but clean.

“Get up!” Waverly ordered.

Ben sucked in a breath and shoved himself upright enough to see a furious Waverly standing in boxers and a T-shirt on the other side of the bed.

“I told you I had to get back to D.C. last night. Look at this!” Waverly leaned across the bed to shove The Washington Post under Ben’s nose.

Ben was still hung over—he’d celebrated Waverly’s wedding after he’d put the groom to bed—and he struggled to focus his eyes. The headline was hard to miss: “Gang Riot Leaves 3 Dead.”

“This is all my fault,” Waverly gritted out between tight jaws.

“How could it be your fault?”

Waverly threw the folded paper in Ben’s face. “That call last night was from my confidential informant. My CI told me trouble was brewing between MS and the One-Eight, that a shoot-out was likely. I knew those kids. I could have intervened. Maybe I could have prevented those deaths.”

“And maybe not,” Ben said, pushing himself to his feet.

“Both gangs will be out for blood now. I need to get to D.C. and find the other boy involved in that shooting—the one still left alive—before the whole city erupts in gang violence.”

“Have you forgotten you’re getting married at one o’clock? You don’t have time to go to D.C. The only place you have time to hit is the shower.”