The Left Series (Book 5): Left On The Run by Christian Fletcher Read Free Book Online Page B

she had smears of blood around the side of her face and over the front of her combat jacket.
    “What is it?” Smith asked her.
    Batfish’s bottom lip trembled before she spoke. “It’s Cordoba. She’s been shot.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Nine
     
    We rushed through the house and entered a large, pale blue and white, shaker style kitchen at the rear of the property. All kinds of emotions rushed through me as we hurried into the room. A combination of sadness, guilt and a failure to fully appreciate Cordoba filled my mind.
    I stopped moving, breathing heavily when I saw her lying on the kitchen floor. Thick, crimson blood pooled on the white tiled floor either side of her shoulders. Her foul weather combat jacket had been removed as well as her sweater. She wore only a blood stained white vest on her upper body.
    Wingate knelt beside Cordoba, furiously applying pads and dressings from her limited medical kit. She pressed one blood soaked pad on a gunshot injury to the top of Cordoba’s left bicep but Wingate’s main concern was a bullet wound, high on the left side of her patient’s chest. Cordoba was still breathing but the gunshot wound made a sickening sucking sound every time she inhaled. Batfish hunkered down and wiped Cordoba’s sweaty forehead with a paper towel.
    I felt sick when I looked at Cordoba’s pale face. Her eyes were open and she looked almost peaceful even though she struggled for breath. Jimmy stood beside a set of shattered French doors leading to the back garden. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he cradled his shotgun with both barrels pointing through the broken glass panes in the set of doors. 
    “What happened?” I blurted. I knew it was a stupid question as soon as I’d uttered the words. “ Durrh! She got shot, asshole. What the hell do you think happened ?” I heard my alternative self whisper in my ear.
    “We were in the hall and heard a noise from the back,” Jimmy sniveled. “I followed Cordoba into the kitchen and we saw two of those dobbers trying to get in through these doors.” He nodded at the battered French doors. “Cordoba shot first. She got one of the guys. He’s dead outside there, by the way. But the other bloke fired on us. Cordoba shoved me back. She saved my life but she got tagged in the process.” Jimmy struggled to speak. He was wracked with emotion. “She went down so I fired the shotgun at the bastard. Boom, boom! Both barrels. I think I hit the shitebag but he legged it back around the front.”
    “It is okay, Jimmy,” Smith said softly. “We got him. We got all the others. They won’t be doing no more shooting. You did good, kid.” He slowly walked to the French doors and stood beside Jimmy, looking out through the shattered glass. Smith glanced back in my direction and nodded. “One dead bad guy in the garden,” he muttered.
    I moved to the doors for a closer inspection. A blood spattered man lay splayed on his back in the snow. Bullet holes peppered the front of his puffer jacket and blood seeped from the wounds in his chest. I gazed beyond the corpse and saw a long garden with tall trees running in a vertical line either side of what was probably a lawn growing beneath the snow.
    Cordoba groaned when Batfish helped Wingate roll her on her side. Wingate went to work, patching up the bullet’s exit wound at the bottom of Cordoba’s shoulder blade. Smith rubbed his hand through his hair and took out his pack of smokes. He offered them around, Jimmy shook his head but I gratefully took one. Smith lit us both up and we blew the smoke out through the broken windows in the French doors. Spot the dog scurried around the kitchen and cocked his leg against one of the kitchen closet doors. He seemed happy to be free from the restraints of the harness Batfish carried him in. 
    “Jeez, what a day,” Smith muttered.  
    Wingate sighed, stood up and joined us beside the French doors. She wiped the blood from her hands with a