Read Online Reap by James Frey - Free Book Online

kept the Colt Lawman with me, too, tucked in the back of my pants. It only had four rounds left.
    John opened the door, ran into the square, dropped to one knee, and—didn’t fire. He was searching for the sniper, if there even was one. Mary ran out and crouched behind a cement planter full of yellow and red flowers. She too looked for the sniper.
    The Sumerian was up from the cop, holding his pistol. I aimed at him with mine, but he was at least fifty yards away, farther than I ever trained for.
    I fired twice, from a standing position, both hands on the gun. But I missed. He ducked back into a crouch and shot back at me. I dove down next to Mary, trying to catch my breath. We had them vastlyoutgunned, but they were moving with the skill and grace of Players, not wasting a motion, not ever unfocused.
    I could hear the rat-a-tat of John’s gun. He was taking short bursts now, but shooting up into an empty window.
    â€œShoot the Players!” I called to him.
    â€œThere has to be a sniper. That’s the only open window.”
    â€œYou can’t see a sniper,” I said. “And we need to kill the Players.”
    â€œI will,” Mary said, taking a deep breath and then peering up over the planter to shoot through the flowers. Petals exploded into the air as she fired the semiautomatic rifle. I dared to look out to see what she was hitting.
    Nothing. She couldn’t see anything through those flowers. She was firing blind.
    â€œMary!” I shouted. “Give me the gun.”
    â€œNo,” she said, ducking back down.
    â€œYou’re not hitting anything. You can’t see.”
    â€œIt’s suppressing fire,” she said, as she tremblingly fumbled with loading a new magazine—the last magazine we had with us, unless there was more ammunition on Walter’s body I hadn’t seen. “I’m fine. You shoot.”
    Kat was using an upturned outdoor table as cover and was firing at the Sumerian, but because of her injury she was forced to use her left hand, and she wasn’t hitting anything.
    I took aim at the Harappan, who was still struggling against the Shang, their swords swinging and clashing, parrying and lunging. I squeezed the trigger and the gun jumped up. I wasn’t good at these distances. I fired again and hit the Shang in the leg. He stumbled, and immediately the Harappan swung at his neck and practically beheaded him. The Shang fell to the ground, blood spurting out of his severed arteries. The Harappan was close to the unconscious Olmec, and he ran over to her and stabbed her in the chest.
    The Nabataean was running to the Sumerian, or to retrieve his spear—I wasn’t sure. I didn’t even try wasting bullets on him whilehe ran. Instead I focused on the Sumerian. I tried to follow all my training—sight the target, pull the trigger, don’t squeeze it, and let out a long slow breath—but by the time I had let out the breath, the Sumerian was on his feet, running. I fired one shot at him and missed.
    â€œSniper!” John called, and started firing again.
    I looked all around for him, trying to see what John was shooting at.
    â€œWhere?” I asked.
    But he couldn’t hear me over the noise of his gun. I turned to Mary.
    â€œMary.”
    She was lying next to me, still bent at the knees but lying on her back.
    She’d been shot in the eye, and there was a spray of blood out the back of her head, splattered across the cobblestones.
    â€œMary,” I said, tears immediately springing to my eyes. I reached a hand out to touch her cheek, but then recoiled. Her face was distorted and broken. The bullet hadn’t gone cleanly through her eye but had hit her cheekbone and torn a hole through her face, fracturing the bones. It was too much, too horrible to see, too horrible to remember. But I knew I was going to remember this every day of my life. It was burning into my mind, searing my eyes like a cattle