“What are you doing in my house?”

The question was shrill and it pierced through the fog in his brain, the weird slowing of time.

“Bleeding,” he said.

“Oh.”

He looked up as best he could and saw a woman in a nightgown.

She was frilly.

Her dark hair was in a braid, and she was holding a teakettle like it might be a weapon. If it weren’t for the electric lights behind her, he’d have thought he’d gone back in time.

“I don’t want to hurt you, ma’am,” he said.

Ma’am.

He didn’t know where the hell that had come from, except some long-ago memory of his mother telling him to be polite and hold the door. Which was some weird past life stuff.

“I’m going to call...”

He shot up off the floor, adrenaline pumping through his veins. “No. Don’t call anyone.” He stumbled again and looked around the room.

Couch. There was a couch.

He pressed his hand against his side and walked to the couch, where he sank heavily onto the cushions and leaned to the side.

“Oh my gosh!” Gosh. Like she was a cartoon character.

“You got blood on my homework!”

He looked back at her. Well, she was fresh-faced, but he hadn’t thought fresh-faced enough she’d be in here doing homework.

“That’s a new one,” he said. “I always told the teacher the dog ate it.”

“I am the teacher,” she said, in a tone that was terse enough he believed it. “I have to call someone.”

“No,” he said, his tone fierce. “You call the cops, they’re going to arrest me. Or worse, take me to a hospital first, and if that happens I’m dead.”

“You are an outlaw.”

Well, she wasn’t far off. He had been. He hadn’t known better, not for most of his life. Then when he was twenty, his brother had taken over entirely for his father and things had... Taken a turn. It didn’t matter he’d been raised to look the other way over smuggling illegal goods, he couldn’t overlook violence. He knew that was wrong. There was no level of indoctrination about the Everett family and their long history of rebellion against the government to do business as they saw fit that would cover violence.

He’d gotten out. Gone into the rodeo. Made his own way.

Now, some twelve years later, Jake had crashed back into his life, bringing guns, violence and the law to his doorstep, culminating in tonight’s rain of bullshit.

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “My brother shot me.”

“He shot you.” Her brown eyes had gone round.

“Yes, and it’s starting to sting. And I’m losing a lot of blood. And you have to understand that my brother is a dangerous man.”

She looked over her shoulder. “I should close the door.”

He hadn’t realized it was still open.

She went over to it and closed it, locking it tight.

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” Clayton said.

“How do you know?”