Booker cocked a fist, but the deputy standing behind him moved quicker. The taser gun hit the Badger in the left kidney. It took a deputy at each limb and another strangling with a baton to restrain Booker. There was a series of violent convulsions before Booker’s strength had been sufficiently depleted for the deputies to drag him through the parting crowd, foam bubbling from his slack jaw.

The honk of a familiar horn turned Cole around. The Jackrabbits’ bus was wobbling onto the corner of the end zone. Coach Hickham was driving, with Savannah standing beside him in the open door.

The wheels creaked to a stop. Hickham ground the bus out of gear but left the engine running as he came out of the seat and stepped down onto the grass. The coach’s eyes found Cole, and he extended an arm toward the bus door. “It’s all yours, Cole. You better hurry.”

Cole nodded, then turned to his team.

“Load up, Jackrabbits. You’re going home.”

CHAPTER 48

YOU missed the turn!” Savannah yelled. “I thought we were taking them to the river.”

“We have to make a stop first.”

“Cole, we’re losing them fast. Where are you going?”

“Sheriff’s office.” He floored the accelerator.

“Now? Why?”

“It’ll just take a second.”

“But why the hell would we go there?”

“You’ll see.” He swerved hard to the right, pitching the bus onto two wheels. They hopped a curb and skidded over a grassy median. “I know a shortcut. We gotta get there before the cops arrive with Booker. Nobody can see us.”

They pulled up to the KSO minutes later. The bus squealed to a stop over slick pavement. Cole brushed past Savannah. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry, you’re okay with them.”

She looked over her shoulder. “They aren’t looking good, Cole.”

“They won’t hurt you.” He bent at the waist and squirmed out of his shoulder pads, dropping them at his feet. “They don’t have the strength for it anyway. Everything they had went into that game.”

He leaped the front steps three at a time and raced inside the building.

Curtis sat where Cole had left him, the handcuff still secure around his wrist. The sheriff had risen to a sitting position with his back against the bars. The physical deterioration had begun, just as it had with the Jackrabbits. Curtis’s uniform was draped loosely over his slumped body. His skin hung flaccid on brittle bones.

Cole heard vertebrae creak as the sheriff turned to him.

“Don’t be afraid, Curtis. It’s me, Cole. Everything’s gonna be okay. It’s time to go now.”

Cole took the key from his sock and unlocked the cuff. He lifted Curtis off the floor, folded his wasted body over one shoulder, and headed back up the stairs.