The Lair (7 page)

A sickening thought occurred to her. What if the girl didn’t know her name? What if she’d been here alone so long she’d forgotten it?

Then she reached out her hand and pressed her palm to Lily’s, quick as a bird, then tucked her hand behind her back. “I’m Danielle,” she whispered, her eyes huge. “Can you really help us?”

Lily’s insides turned to ice. “Us?”

“Did you come here to help us?”

Us?

Shit.

Lily mentally backpedaled through all the tiny bits of evidence that proved just how screwed she was. All these little snapshots that hadn’t made sense until that instant: the open window, the Cheerio on the high-chair tray. That was all new. It had been from today.

This wasn’t some kid scraping by waiting to be rescued. This was a kid with older siblings or even parents. This was a kid with defenses.

Crap.

All of this flashed through her brain, but she didn’t have time to flee or shout out a warning to Stu and Jacks. In the distance, from downstairs, she heard Stu’s sat phone ringing again. Her breath caught in her chest as she waited, hoping she’d hear Stu’s response. But the silence was only broken by the ringing phone. No Stu. No Jacks.

She glanced back over her shoulder toward the hall. The door was open. If she strained to listen, she could hear the faintest hint of footsteps on the floor below.

She turned back to the girl. To Danielle.

“Honey, go back in the closet. Hide, okay?”

Because someone was downstairs and it probably wasn’t Jacks. Whoever had kept Danielle alive all this time, they hadn’t done it by letting strangers wander through their house.

Danielle cocked her head to the side and scrunched her mouth into a frown. Then she shook her head.

“Go,” Lily urged. “Hide!”

A moment later a man’s voice called, “You might as well come out. I know you’re up there.”

She waved at Danielle to go back into the closet one more time. As she crossed the bedroom, she tucked her flashlight into the back of her pants and pulled an arrow from the quiver. Sweat made her fingers slick as she notched it. Her hands were shaking. She wouldn’t be able to aim for crap. Probably for the best anyway.

The bow and arrow were just for show this time. There was no way she would shoot this man in his own home, but maybe—maybe—if he saw she was armed, he’d at least hesitate long enough for her to talk her way out of this.

She kicked the bedroom door open and then spun out into the hall, facing the stairs and pulling the bow taut as she moved.

She aimed down the staircase, toward the voice. The dark, hulking shape of a man blocked out most of the light. She couldn’t distinguish any of his features or guess at his age, but he was bulky. A grown adult. He held Jacks in front of him. Jacks clawed helplessly at his grip and at the gun the man held to Jacks’s throat.

She had no idea where Stu was, only that she hadn’t heard any gunshots yet. She assumed he’d been taken out. Disabled. Knocked out, but probably not shot. Yet.

Her mind raced, trying to think of a resolution to the standoff that wouldn’t involve Jacks’s brains being splattered all over the wall. Or hers. Or possibly both.

Maybe she could stall him. Maybe the cavalry would show up.

Yeah, right.

The cavalry was Carter, up on the mountain somewhere. Miles away.

With a show of bravado she so didn’t feel, she called out, “Let him go!”

He ignored her and called back, “You okay, Danielle?”

“She’s fine,” she yelled before Danielle could answer. However this went down, it wouldn’t be good. Someone would die—her or Jacks or the man. Maybe all three. Jesus, she wished Danielle would go back to hiding in the closet.

“She’s just fine,” Lily called again, trying for the soothing tone she failed at so miserably. “If you let my friend go, I’ll send her down.”

The guy let out a guttural sound that was part growl, part sneer. “You think I’m going to just let you and your little friends walk out of my house?”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“’Round here, we shoot thieves like you.”

“We’re not thieves.” But the line between thieves and scavengers was a thin one. “We didn’t know anyone lived here. You let us go and we’ll never bother you again.”

“I let you walk now and you’ll come back and murder us all in our sleep.”

“We don’t want to hurt you.” She could feel her anxiety rising as her voice rose in pitch. Her arm quivered with fatigue from holding her bow. “We have plenty of supplies without yours.”

“What sort of Pollyanna bullshit is that? Where’ve you been living, missy, that you think there are plenty of supplies anywhere?”

She automatically tensed at the aggression in his voice and instinct caused her to pull the bow even more taut. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the dark and she could see more of him now: gray, shaggy hair, worn plaid shirt, work boots. Jacks’s feet dangled above his. Oh God, were his kicks getting weaker? He was about to pass out. He was going to die. For all Lily knew, Stu was already dead.

She had two options: put down her weapon and let him kill her or shoot him herself. Jacks wasn’t a small guy, but this guy was huge. She might hit his shoulder or arm, if her aim was steady.

But she’d never shot anyone. Not anyone human anyway. She’d shot targets at Girl Scout camp. A rabbit once at her uncle Rodney’s. She’d thrown up after that. And then Ticks. She’d shot lots of Ticks. She’d thrown up then, too.

That had been horrific enough.

Could she shoot a human? A sentient, normal human? A guy who was just protecting his kid?

Before Lily could lower her bow, Danielle pushed her way past and into the hall. She threw herself in front of Lily, arms outspread.

“Don’t shoot her, Daddy! She’s here to help.”

“Get down, Danielle!” her father shouted.

“Get back,” Lily yelled at the same time.

She could tell she’d surprised him. He expected her to use his daughter against him.

On impulse, Lily lowered her bow, releasing the tension until the arrow clattered to the ground. It slid down a couple of steps before the fletching caught on the step.

“What game are you playing, missy?”

“My name is Lily,” she called back. “I’m not playing a game. I don’t want anyone to get hurt. Danielle, go down to your father.”

Lily looked back at the girl. Her eyes were wide and panicked. How much violence had she seen in her short life? No child should be so afraid. Lily handed her the bow, hoping that her father would understand what that meant. She was defenseless now.

“Go on,” she urged. “Take this to your daddy.”

“You said you were here to help.”

“I was. I still am, if your Daddy lets me.” More promises she probably couldn’t keep. She looked back up at him. “Let my friend go. Please.”

She imagined she could see the hesitation on his face. The flickering of doubt. She thought his muscles loosened and he started to let Jacks go.

Then a savage cry came from somewhere off near the kitchen. The cavalry had arrived after all.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Carter

I crept across the side porch of the house, my heart pounding from my flat-out run from the truck. And, yeah, my terror. What would I do if I was too late? If something had already happened to her?

During the crazy drive down the mountain, I tried to tell myself that I was overreacting. Okay, so Lily had left on a supply raid without telling me. Yeah, I was pissed. But just because I was paranoid, that didn’t mean she was in immediate danger. But then I’d called Stu a second time. And no one answered. Not Stu, not Jacks, not Lily. On a three-person team, someone should be able to answer the damn phone. Unless they were in serious trouble.

Using two hands, I held my Glock extended out in front of me as I moved down the porch, constantly scanning the yard and the interior of the house for signs of movement. The house looked innocent enough. A white farmhouse with a deep porch wrapped around the first floor. An open yard with a detached garage a hundred feet away. The grass in the yard had gone wild and long even though it was only early spring. The grass shifting in the breeze was the lone sign of movement.

In this crazy world, there was one thing—one goddamned thing—that actually mattered to me. Keeping Lily safe. Why the hell couldn’t I do that one thing?

I rounded the corner onto the west side of the house and saw Stu laying in a crumpled hump on the porch. Swallowing a curse, I crossed to Stu’s side, crouched, and pressed a couple of fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse without ever lowering my weapon or diverting my gaze. I found his pulse, which was weak but steady. A quick glance and pat-down assured me that Stu had been knocked out but not stabbed or shot. The absence of a gaping hole in his chest meant we weren’t dealing with Ticks.

A flicker of movement caught my attention when I stood. Someone, a huge guy, had Jacks in a stranglehold and was dragging him through the kitchen. But where the hell was Lily?

Rage coursed through my veins, along with a healthy dose of panic as my instincts warred with my training. I knew what Sebastian would say. I ha
d to assess the situation. Before I acted. Before I charged in there and made things worse.

But if this guy had laid so much as a finger on Lily, I was going to kill him.

I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out slowly, trying to calm down enough to think. I didn’t have a clear shot. I needed to get in the house and sneak up on the guy.

He was standing at the foot of the stairs, yelling up the stairs at someone. Probably Lily.

Who else could it be, right? He’d already taken out Stu. It must be Lily.

I sucked in another deep breath and weighed my options.

If I tackled the guy, the gun could go off. If I just shot him in the back, the bullet would go straight through Jacks.

I moved around the corner and found the door. I yanked my picks from my pocket, tucked the gun back in its holster at the back of my waist, and crouched down to get started on the lock. I was normally pretty fast with the lock pick, but there was more than one dead bolt and I had to keep pausing to shake the tremors out of my hands. I opened the door just in time to hear Lily call down an answer to something the guy had said. Relief flooded me.

I crept around t
he corner just in time to see her hand her bow over to a little girl and I knew she was ass deep in trouble. The guy moved the gun away from Jacks’s neck. He was gonna shoot Lily. Right here in front of me. He was going to shoot her unless I did something to stop it.

After all this time. After all the things I’d done to protect her and keep her safe. She was going to get shot.

Anger washed through me as I charged the guy. Barreling into him was like plowing head first into a brick wall, but I was fast enough and mad enough that I knocked him back a step. The gun fired a rapid spray of bullets as all three of us flew through the air and slammed into the ground.

The impact rattled my bones and my head. My ears were ringing from the gunshot. I pushed myself to my knees, shaking my head to clear my ears. For a long second, I was disoriented, the lack of hearing throwing me off balance. Then I looked up the stairs to where I expected Lily to be. She stood at the second-floor landing. For the briefest second, I was overjoyed. She was alive. I’d made it in time.

But her skin had gone a ghostly white. Her mouth was wide and gaping. Her eyes panicked. Her lips bright as blood.

I called her name. At least, I thought I did. Though her mouth was moving, I couldn’t hear her. I couldn’t even reach her in time. All I could do was watch as she sagged against the wall. Her eyes rolled back in her head as her feet slipped out from under her. Lily had been shot. That single stray bullet had hit her. She tumbled down the stairs, leaving a smear of crimson on the wall.

And in that moment, I knew what it was like to be killed by a Tick. To have my chest ripped open and my heart torn out. It was beyond pain. Beyond imagining. Shock and anguish roared through me.

The ringing mingled with the screams coming from several different places. And with my own blood pounding through my head, blocking out reason and logic and caution.

There are a lot of things I could have done to eliminate this guy as a threat.

A fist to the guy’s jaw. Over and over again. Followed quickly by solid punches to both kidneys. My forearm pressed into his windpipe to cut off his oxygen supply along with jabs to the ribs. A solid knee in the nuts.

Any one of those things would have disarmed the guy. Hell, I might have done all of them.

I don’t know. Because when I saw Lily go down, pure, blinding rage overtook me. Hot and intense. Next thing I knew, I was being pulled off the guy and pounded myself. Someone was holding me and someone else was jabbing me in the stomach. I kicked up my legs trying to break free and take out the guy using me like a punching bag, but a third guy’s fist slammed into my jaw so hard it made my teeth clatter.

The three of them together, they were going to tear me limb from limb. And I welcomed it, because if Lily was gone, then what was left?

Then I heard the unmistakable click-clack of a shotgun being primed.

Everyone froze.

The two guys who’d been hammering on me slowly turned to face the gunman, edging out of the way so that I could see him. Or rather, her.

The person holding the shotgun was a little girl. She was maybe six. Seven, at most. With long, dark hair and a thin face that looked underfed but stubborn as hell.

I looked from the man on the ground at my feet to the guys who’d pulled me off him. The gun-toting asshole had a couple of bruises already forming on his cheeks and his lip had been spilt open, but I hadn’t done any permanent damage. The three boys who’d pulled me off him ranged from about my age to a year or so younger. The guy who was holding me didn’t let go, but the other two held up their hands as though ready to surrender. Then I looked back up the stairs to the little girl.

Hell, how could she even hold the shotgun? The damn thing looked like it weighed more than she did, but she held it tight to her shoulder, like someone who’d been using it her whole life. And, well, if this family was tough enough to survive the Ticks, then maybe she had.