“Holy shit. This might actually work.”
“Status?” my dad asks as he stomps down the stairs.
“He’s alive, and he’s following us,” Barrett tells him.
When he’s on the ground floor, he wraps me in a bear hug and tells me, “It’s almost over, baby girl. Hang in there.”
Then he slips a knife into my coat pocket, which makes me even more nervous. Because if I have to use it to defend myself against the psycho, then it means someone else is hurt or dead.
Barrett
Leaving Lyla at my house and driving away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
I know she’s not really alone, that there are eyes on her in every direction, ready to pounce if things move faster than we planned.
But it’s not the same as being in the room with her, holding her hand, keeping her safe.
On the ride back to the bar alone, I get this gnawing in my gut that has me thinking about Tobin.
I think about the friend I lost a lot, but today is different.
We met by coincidence when I was stationed in Afghanistan, working in REF, the Rapid Equipping Force. As a unit supply specialist, it was my job to inventory, inspect, load and unload equipment, and deliver supplies.
My first delivery was some magnetometers and Talon robots to Tobin’s brigade late one night. I ended up staying for dinner instead of driving right back to the base. The meal was awful, but the company was needed since I was in a new country, doing a new job, and hadn’t heard from Laurel or my family in days.
At least once a month, I would deliver supplies to those men who were in charge of locating and disposing of IEDs, one of the most dangerous jobs. Each time, there were fewer men, but Tobin somehow made it out alive when so many of his comrades didn’t make it home. Looking back on it, I can only imagine how that would have made me feel. How it did make him feel in the last days.
I never got to meet up with him as a civilian.
I waited too long to extend an invite to Rockland because I didn’t want to bother him or have him refuse.
I won’t wait too long this time.
“We need to go back,” I tell Isaac and my brothers as soon as I walk into Greer’s.
“Did he bite already?” Remy asks.
“I don’t know…”
“Then we wait,” Isaac replies. “You know I hate waiting as much as you do, but we only have one shot to make this work.”
“We wait for the confirmation, then we go,” Remy says, giving me a slap on the back. “RJ texted that he had eyes on Lyla. She’s fine.”
“Good. That’s good,” I say in relief. By now, she’s on the back of his bike, heading to the hotel. By the time we go back to the house to catch the fucker, she’ll be tucked inside a motel room, safe and sound.
“Need a drink?” Greer asks me from behind the bar.
“Glass of water?”
“You got it,” he says as he starts to fill up a glass.
He doesn’t get finished before our phones all buzz.
“Let’s go,” Isaac says before I even have a chance to read the message.
“Good luck,’ Greer says.
“Thanks,” I reply, pulling my phone out of my pocket as I head for the door to see the text with my own eyes.
He’s out of his truck, heading to the front door.
Lyla’s not there. She’s safe, I remind myself over and over on the short ride back to the house.
We’re all off our bikes, guns in our hands, heading inside without a word moments later.
I go in first as we planned with Isaac, heading to the back of the house as he opens bedroom doors for me while Remy searches the front and Colt checks the kitchen.
My hands are rock steady on my gun as I prepare myself to fire it.
But in no time, we’ve cleared every bedroom, every closet.
“Where is he?” I exclaim as I race back through the house, double-checking the living room and kitchen.
“He’s not here, bro,” Colt says.
“He has to be! Someone would’ve seen him go out the back, right?”
“There are no updates about him leaving through the front or back.”
I head to the back door, where Remy’s standing with the open screen door, the back porch light now flipped on. “Maybe nobody saw him if he killed the lights and crawled.”
“Crawled? Are you fucking kidding?” I huff.
Sure enough, it looks like a narrow plow made a path through the shin-high leaves to the woods.
I’ve just stepped off the porch to the yard when I hear the gunshots.
I don’t even think. I just take off running to the woods.
At least three sets of footsteps crunch leaves behind me until there are only two and then one.
“Sorry, Bear. I can’t… Go, I’ll catch up!” Colt says as I outrun him.
It’s the one time in my life I’m thankful for those harsh boot camp days, having to run as few as four and as many as ten miles in a day.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lyla
We had a foolproof plan to catch the creep, or so we thought.
Everything was going great.
I slipped out of the back of the house right after Bear’s motorcycle left the driveway.
I walked slowly, quietly, to the woods without using a flashlight to climb onto the waiting four-wheeler with RJ.
He cranked it up but left the lights off as we took off.
That’s where everything went to shit.
We made it only a few yards before I heard the popping sound of a gun from my nightmares. The four-wheeler stopped, RJ cursed and yanked me off, and then we started running.
I ran faster than I ever had in my life because I knew he was behind us, that he could shoot RJ if we didn’t get to the clearing at the motel where backup would be waiting.
There was no time to send a message on my phone or call for help.
All we could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible.
“He’s catching up,” RJ whispers to me when he grabs my arm to try and hurry me up.
And then suddenly, he’s no longer there.
It’s like déjà vu. The nauseating, choking kind that feels almost like a heart attack.
I turn around and find him facedown on the ground. The man in the hoodie is standing over him. He pulls out a gun and points it at RJ.
“Don’t! Don’t hurt him!” I scream. I struggle to catch my breath, telling him, “You’re after me, right? Here…here I am.”
He doesn’t move for a second, and I have no idea what he did to RJ, who still isn’t moving. I don’t remember hearing any more gunshots, so hopefully, he didn’t shoot him.
Suddenly, a blinding light appears, making me cringe away.
“You look just like your mother.”
What did he say? If I can keep him talking, maybe it’ll give someone time to find us. God, I wish Bear was here.
“You…you knew my mother?” I ask.
“Your father didn’t deserve her. He’s the reason she’s dead.”
“H-how do you know that?”
“She wrote me a letter, telling me she forgave me, but your father couldn’t. That’s why she had to take her life; she couldn’t stand to be near him. But she promised me that he would take care of you for me.”