Green Desert - Chapter 7.5.2 - Zhíno

I took a few more shots up the hill before I realized the cops weren’t returning fire. I stopped, listening.

“Did we get them?” asked Gogzhuè’s flunky.

“Shut up! I’m listening.”

“I could just shoot you.” In the dark, I couldn’t see where his gun pointed.

“You want the guns, don’t you? Now shut up.”

Thankfully, he did. I slowed my breathing. Up above, leaves rustled. But that was the wind, not people.

Why had I mixed up with people like this? Dumb fuckers who shot at cops the first chance they got. It was all too good to be true: Drive to Rívorí, deliver these guns and explosives, we’ll give you some land out in the high desert. Enough land so I wouldn’t be bothered. A greenhouse for the marijuana. A field of poppies. Cash crops. But it wasn’t going to happen anymore. Fuck. What was I going to do now?

The flunky hissed, “Do you hear anything? I don’t hear anything.”

I hadn’t been listening. Damn. Close by, a rustling in the bushes. Just a few meters away. Had the cops snuck down the cliff in the dark?

I dropped flat on the ground and slithered towards the noise, quieter than he was. Should I shoot him? I already had one cop’s blood on my hands. If I killed another, it was the electric chair for sure. But I couldn’t let him shoot me, either.

I slowly circled around a bush.

A half-meter away, a face. I swung my gun.