Author's Note: First, quick note of thanks and gratitude to all of the people who have sent me random notes on here and Tumblr and Twitter over the last few weeks, welcoming me back to the fandom and letting me know how much you've enjoyed the stories over the years. It's been, genuinely, really nice to know they've made such an impact :) And it is good to be back, even if it is in this weird way. But with the world being so jacked this last year, all of my muses had taken a hit, so simply re-emersing myself here to polish up these older stories, has been a good exercise. Hopefully obviously I'll get back to my other fandoms/active stories, at some point (looking right at you Walking Dead), but if nothing else, I still have probably two hundred chapters worth of various, unfinished, CM stories that can go back up. So hopefully we'll be in touch here for a while yet :)

And now, picking up from Emily getting hit with the bloody spray.

Prompt Set #19 (February 2012)

Author: Sue Grafton

Title Challenge: "R" Is For Ricochet

A Rush of Blood to the Head

Aaron threw himself forward to catching the screaming, blood spattered, Emily around the waist.

They fell to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs, with him on top of her, as her head . . . again . . . cracked down onto the unforgiving marble floor. Even with the din of the full blown hysteria now surrounding them, the sound was audible.

And it was sickening.

But unfortunately there was no time for him to check her injury, or even to ask her if she was all right. Not with the gunfire that was still flying in their direction.

The first bullet had ripped through the throat of the gunman who had been holding him hostage. Aaron wasn't sure if he was quite dead yet, but he was definitely no longer posing any threat to them.

He'd dropped where he stood.

And though that first shot had clearly been intended to save them . . . it had to have been . . . these subsequent ones were not. And some part of Aaron's frazzled, panic stricken, brain also processed that the first shot sounded like it had come from far away, though he knew that these latter ones were coming from a much closer distance.

These bullets were whizzing right over his head.

One . . . then two in quick succession . . . and then a fourth.

And a fifth.

They were coming slow enough to count, but not slow enough for him to risk trying to grab Emily and make a run back over to the revolving door.

They'd never make it.

As it was now . . . he winced . . . the bullets were mostly going high, just smashing into the concrete pillars and spraying dust into the air. But with his head down, he had no idea exactly who was doing the shooting . . . or who the hell they were shooting at. Because nothing about the way they were firing, made any sense.

Because nobody was firing back.

At least not as far as he knew. And he and Emily certainly weren't armed. So if they were the targets . . . if somebody was trying to kill them now just on the principle of blaming them for what happened to their friend . . . then why the HELL didn't they just run up and put a bullet directly into their skulls?!

Any other approach seemed a waste of ammo.

Just then somebody else started shooting. Aaron knew it was a new shooter, because it was a new gun.

A shotgun.

His fingers clenched into his palms. The echo of the blast was terrifying. And then there was a scream of pain, and then a woman sobbing and screaming.

Screaming that her hand was gone.

And though Aaron's (idiotic) instinct was to want to go her . . . this public service bent of his really was a pain in the ASS at times(!) . . . in all honestly, he was much too terrified to move.

Besides that though . . . he tucked his head down tighter against Emily's, feeling her body shaking against his, and hearing her whimper in his ear . . . he already had someone to look after.

He couldn't take on another.

Suddenly there was the sound of glass was shattering, and Aaron's heart leapt into his throat.

JESUS CHRIST!

From the distance . . . and the blast of warm air . . . he was pretty sure it was the window just ahead of them and to the right. It had blown inwards.

Shards of glass had flown everywhere. There were more screams of pain. More cries for help.

And that's when relative chaos became complete insanity.

It was like a domino fell. The windows all around them were imploding. There was a hiss . . . probably gas canisters . . . and then a haze was filling the air.

It smelled . . . but it didn't burn.

Just a smoke bomb, Aaron deduced. Still though, it was going to irritate the membranes. So he snapped his eyes shut while hissing at Emily to close hers tight, and not to open them . . . or her mouth . . . until he said so.

From the violent jerk of her head, he was fairly she was nodding an 'okay.'

So he buried his face against her neck, while fumbling to loosely cover her mouth and nose with his hand. With the windows blown out, he knew that the smoke would dissipate soon enough, but until then it would be best to keep as much it out of their respiratory systems as he could.

He'd read enough after action reports to know that shit wasn't good to breath in.

Not that it seemed to be doing anything to slow down the gunmen.

He wasn't sure if they had masks, or were now just blindly firing into the open air, but once the smoke arrived, the bullets . . . and shotgun shells . . . had started coming fast and furious.

They were definitely emptying full clips.

And Aaron was almost positive that they weren't the only ones shooting. Of course from his position . . . blind, and truly half deaf from all the noise . . . it was hard to say for sure what was coming from where, but it seemed like there was a full crossfire going on over their heads now.

Whoever was outside . . . whatever agencies . . . they were firing in.

And that's when Aaron remembered that the Secret Service had snipers stationed on the roof of the White House. So unlike with any other bank siege, this one required no 'response time' for emergency units to arrive. They didn't have to be called in from other parts of the city, and then find their positions and coordinate their assault. Everybody was already here and in place.

The Secret Service was all around them.

And as far as they knew . . . Aaron's teeth dug into his lip as a piece of glass sliced into his arm . . . this could be an attack on the president. Or the Treasury. The Treasury was even closer to the bank than the White House.

So they weren't going to hold anything back.

In fact, thinking about it . . . and at the moment he had nothing to do but think, and pray . . . he was sure that all they'd needed was that first shot heard inside the bank, to start mobilizing. That bullet had probably implemented a plan that they'd drilled a thousand times before. And then the other bullet that had gone through the glass, had kicked all the rest of it into action.

Now it sounded like a war zone.

Because the gunmen in the bank . . . whichever ones were still left, God only knew . . . they'd clearly decided to go with a full on, fuck it all, firefight. Even with the smoke, they were cursing and screaming and firing over and over.

Seriously, MINUTES had been passing!

And at least two . . . now three or four . . . other people had been shot too. Aaron could hear the yelps and then the screams. It was horrible.

And though the faintly acrid smell in the air seemed to finally be clearing, still he kept his eyes screwed shut.

There were no visual memories there that he wanted to keep.

And some small part of his brain . . . the part that wasn't ready to piss his pants, the part that built criminal cases and cared about such things as reason and motive . . . vaguely wondered if maybe this really was a terrorist attack that he and Emily had stumbled into.

It was entirely possible.

After all, they'd just had one in New York a couple months ago. Those men had attacked the World Trade Center. That had been a car bomb, he didn't know what the hell this was. But really, what else could this be but political? Could anyone honestly be so fucking IDIOTIC as to pick THIS bank on THIS corner of THIS city, simply to ROB?! They might as well have taken a shot at the president directly.

The response was going to be the same.

Hitting this bank as a heist, it was a hundred percent, suicide run. These people were always going out in body bags.

And that plan looked to be coming to fruition.

And in the midst of all that screaming and gunfire, and Emily's continued . . . and quiet . . . sobbing in his ear, the stupidest thought kept bouncing around inside Aaron's terrified brain.

He didn't want to die on his birthday.

A trivial point really, it would be no better to die tomorrow or the day after, but for some reason this trivial point seemed to matter. He needed to not die today. It would be so pathetic. A tragic cliché. In his mind he could already see the newspaper . . . the picture and the headline.

The absolute embarrassment of it all.

And after all these years of locking up violent criminals, and all of the SHIT that he had lived through in his youth, he was not going to go down as a HOOK for the evening news!

He absolute would not allow it.

So although the fight or flight extinct was foolishly screaming at him to run far and fast . . . the adrenaline was PULSATING through him . . . he kept his body flat, and still. His head low, and tucked. His left cheek remained pressed against Emily's right one. And even with his hand half covering her mouth, her breath was hot and ragged in his ear.

Just as he was sure his was in hers.

It was funny . . . and terrible . . . that you could experience the same sensation of intimacy while waiting to die, that you did while you were making love. And even though Emily's shaking had gotten better, she hadn't been able to stop crying.

He could feel her tears running against his skin.

They were drying on his neck.

With his free hand . . . the one not covering her mouth . . . he fumbled to find hers from where it had gotten trapped between them. It all he could think to do. And the air had cleared enough that he felt like he could open his mouth and speak.

Though the taste left on his tongue was bitter.

"It has to end soon," he murmured, with only a faint tremor of his voice, "we just have to stay down until the Secret Service gets control." He finally found her fingers, and wound them through his. "We'll be okay." Then he pressed his lips to her ear.

"Now you say it."

Emily bit down on her lip, trying to stop her tears. They weren't doing anybody any good. Especially given that Aaron was trying to make her feel better.

At least as best he could.

And she felt yet another pull for this man. They were barely acquaintances, and still he was protecting her as though she was someone that mattered to him. Because she knew that he would have been safer . . . or at least lower down . . . if he had rolled off of her and onto the floor. But instead he had stayed where he was, appointing himself as her human shield.

A girl could so easily fall in love with a man like that.

So she sucked in a shallow . . . gasping . . . breath, and whispered back the words that he wanted her to say.

"Right," she bit down on her lip, "we'll be okay."

And though she knew from the squeeze of her fingers, and the whisper of "good," that Aaron was pleased by her response . . . she wasn't.

Though she couldn't have denied him that request . . . she couldn't have denied this man anything then . . . with so many people screaming, possibly dying, and so many guns firing, the words felt hollow. False.

Lies.

Because she knew that just one bullet, one ricochet, and she was dead . . . and she didn't want to die a liar. So she added something more to the words that she'd already spoken. She added the truth.

"I'm really scared."

Though she tried to keep her voice steady, the sob still broke through at the end. And then she felt Aaron squeeze her hand again.

"Yeah," Aaron swallowed, "yeah, I am too."

And he left it that. Because that was the truth. And with his arm bleeding and his body shaking, and his heart pounding, he just didn't have anything more to say.

There was nothing more to say.

Because he had no idea when this would all be over. Time around them seemed to have frozen . . . yet everything was still happening. It was like someone had pressed pause on a VCR, and now they were stuck in a terrible scene from some crappy action movie.

And they had no way of getting out of it.

They were waiting for someone to fast forward, to just get to the end of the damn SCENE!

Wait . . . his ears perked up . . . now there were sirens rolling up outside. Most likely back-up arriving from other agencies and departments.

And now there was more shouting from out there . . . and then more crying from in here.

And more bullets from everywhere.

So many bullets. It was like all of these people had shown up to fight a war, and nobody told the civilians to get out of the way before the shooting started. But of course that was always how battles were waged.

Nobody ever told the civilians to get out of the way.

Finally though, it seemed that the crossfire at least had ended. And then again the dominant noise came from outside. It was a shout of "CEASEFIRE!"

It echoed twice down the line, back and forth.

Two more random shots from inside the bank . . . a single shot from outside . . . and then the bullets stopped completely.

And though Aaron wasn't yet ready to open his eyes, he knew in his gut that the last gunman in the bank had to have just been shot dead.

Because they sure as hell wouldn't have all just stopped because people with badges told them to.

And even though someone had FINALLY taken their scene off Pause, for another moment Aaron lay there on top of Emily, listening to the moans and sobs of the injured. Vaguely, he wondered if any of these people were victims of friendly fire.

Then he realized that was a question for another day.

And it was a question that would be asked by people a hell of a lot more important than him.

Then suddenly even the worst of the pained sobbing was being drowned out by the sounds of dozens of pairs of boots pounding across the marble, and crunching over the broken glass. Police radios were crackling around them.

They were saved.

Officially anyway.

So slowly, Aaron opened his eyes. There was a slight burning sensation from the remnants of the smoke. But even in the haze still clearing, he could see what was directly in front of him. And what was directly in front of him was Emily.

The curve of her cheek, the shell of her ear . . . the curl of her hair where it was tacky with fresh blood.

Blood.

His eyes popped.

OH CHRIST!

A/N 2: If you were expecting the hostage element here to go on longer with more twists and turns, sorry. Remember, this story wasn't about a bank robbery, it was just about how they met and why the circumstances bonded them in a way that a simple 'pretty girl slips on her high heels,' wouldn't have. And really, if I was going for a full big bang, bank hostage tale, I could have done at least a dozen chapters on that alone :)

And if you're wondering just how irresponsible it would be for the Secret Service to fire into a bank full of hostages, please wait for the post-game wrap up to find out exactly what was happening :) Because remember right now all you have are Aaron's impressions. Impressions he got with his eyes closed.

And the first attack on The World Trade Center really did happen just a few months before this story takes place. So even though back then a terrorist attack still wasn't the average American's 'first' presumption when something terrible happened, the idea of it being a possibility, had entered our culture. Also, back then, we didn't have "Mass Shootings." Yes, there had been a few random incidents over the DECADES, but the shitshow we live with now, didn't begin to ramp up until the late 90s when the school shootings started. So there was no part of Aaron's brain that was going to think some random assholes would just start shooting up a public place for no reason. That would have been crazy *eye roll emoji*

This story will be the predominant post this week because I REALLY love this world, and fortunately Communication Breakdown is one from done so I can start refocusing my attention here.