The Circle – Shape of Love Read Online J.A. Huss

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Mafia, Suspense Tags Authors: J.A. Huss Advertisement

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Okay. Think, Keene.

We hit a bump and it knocks me over against one of the van’s walls. Based on how hard I just got tossed, I have to assume we’re moving with at least some amount of pace. I can’t hear much of what’s going on outside, but we seem to be traveling in a fairly straight line, which suggests there’s not a ton of traffic we’re swerving around to avoid. But that’s all I can surmise.

Shit. I gotta get out of here. Are Danny and Alec okay? People were getting shot in the head before I got tossed inside, and I have no clue if Danny and/or Alec wound up among them.

And so… I do something probably strange. I close my eyes—which is redundant in the dark, but I do it anyway—and try to see if I can feel them. I focus, center my breath as best I’m able, and try to make some kind of… emotional connection or something.

And I do. It works. I can feel Danny. It’s almost the exact opposite of earlier. I can absolutely feel every cell in his body. I don’t know exactly what’s happening out there, but I know Danny is alive right now, and I think… he’s close.

It’s very, very weird—to have a psychic connection with someone—but I choose not to judge it or myself and just feel grateful that I can feel what I can feel. It’s the feeling that keeps me from becoming too concerned about what’s going to happen next. I think it probably always has.

I can feel Alec too. But it’s… different. I don’t know another word to describe it. It’s not less connected or profound, but it’s different.

And not just different from Danny, but different from how it always has been before.

I wonder what—

SCREECH.

And now I’m tossed and thrown like a rag doll as the van makes a hard turn and the terrain over which we’re traveling gets much, much bumpier. Okay. Yeah. We’re definitely off-roading it now. And this vehicle was not built to be an ATV.

It sucked before, but it really sucks now as I’m trying to stand and getting smacked all over the goddamn place.

And, very suddenly, I get hard confirmation that Danny and Alec are okay. I hear an incredibly familiar sound. It is a sound that isn’t uncommon, but something about hearing it from Danny and Alec is pacifying in a way that has always brought me joy when those two are involved.

The sound of gunfire.

Bullets ping off the outside of the van and I can tell they’re from guns fired by Alec and Danny. Ping. Ping. Ping, ping, ping.

It’s a weird, atonal, violent melody. Beautiful music to my ears as their shots ricochet and I stumble and fall, stand, and stumble and fall again.

I take another breath. I smile.

… I feel safe.

DANNY

“He’s turning up ahead, bru!”

“I fuckin’ see!” I shout back.

There are a bunch of sheep blocking the road in front of us. Because of course there fucking are.

I saw them about five seconds ago and got really goddamn happy because that meant Cillian was going to have to stop or else just plow through a bunch of sheep that seem to have wandered out from wherever they’ve wandered and are blocking the road.

And while there’s a reasonable argument to be made that he wouldn’t care and could just mow ’em down, I also think it might be, like, a dealbreaker for getting into heaven or something for an Irishman to kill sheep? I dunno. Not like the guy doesn’t have fifty other things that would prevent him from getting into Irish heaven, if such a thing exists, but I guess he has a soft spot for fuckin’ sheep because he turns.

Into a forest or something.

Because of course there’s a fuckin’ forest that he’s able to turn off into. Why wouldn’t there be? Christ, will this day never end?

He takes the van all herky-jerky, wobbly-bouncy into the cover of the trees and Alec yells at me again, “Look, look! He’s turning!”

“I FUCKIN’ SEE!” I yell back.

I turn the bike squealing in the direction of the van. We pass a wooden sign that says we’re now in “Cairn Wood,” just below a sign that reads, “Forest Service.”

Great. We’ve already shot up one tourist landmark and now we’re about to lay waste to a national park or something. Once we get out of this and get Alec’s kid back to her mom, I’m never coming to Ireland a-fuckin’-gain.

I don’t prepare Alec for the little bump up ahead that we’re about to hit because there’s no time. I just smash into it at full speed and it sends both of our asses off the bike seat and up into the air.

I grip the handlebars tightly and Alec grips me just as tightly. Maybe even a little more tightly than is absolutely necessary. It’s not just a reactive tightening of his arms around me. There’s a kind of intention behind it. Like he’s letting me know that he’s still there. That he doesn’t plan on going anywhere. Or something like that.

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