More than once, I was grateful for four-wheel drive, and Brooke gripped the sides of her seat like she was in a theme park ride, but she never complained or asked me to slow down. I had no idea how quickly the Nazis would get to the Kuro house, but I doubted they were going to drive fast enough to draw any unwanted attention to themselves, which meant I hopefully had time.
“We don’t actually know that this is where they’re going,” Brooke said. “We could be wrong.”
“We could be,” I said. “But I’d really rather be safe than sorry about this.”
We arrived at the Kuro house not long after, and I stopped the Mercedes on the driveway, got out, and ran to the door. I banged on it to wake up everyone inside just as Brooke’s phone rang.
She answered with a confused expression, putting it on speaker for me to hear. “Sheriff?” she asked. “It’s two a.m.”
“Don’t talk; just listen,” Sheriff King said quickly. “Bad people are heading to the Kuro house. You need to get there before me and get them out.”
“We’re already here,” I said. “We saw you shaking hands with Nazis.”
The sheriff paused. “I’ll explain later, but right now, you need to get the Kuros to safety.”
Daniel opened the door as the phone call ended. “Nate?” he asked, confused. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Yep, and bad people are headed this way,” I said.
“Bad people? What bad people?” Daniel asked as the sounds of powerful engines drifted through the night.
I looked behind me as three pickup trucks parked at the edge of the driveway, having apparently been driven much faster than I’d expected.
“Looks like the sheriff was on the level,” Brooke said, drawing her pistol. “We need to get inside.”
“Get in,” Daniel said, his face etched with worry.
Brooke shoved me forward as one of the Nazis raised a rifle in our direction and took a shot. Brooke grunted as the bullet hit her in the back. We grabbed hold of her and dragged her inside, slamming the door shut behind us.
“Shit,” Brooke said, pained.
Daniel examined her. “The vest stopped it,” he said. “But you’ve probably broken a rib or two.”
“Everyone to the back of the house,” I said, looking out the window to see one of the Nazis yelling at the man who’d taken the shot. “Do you have a gun?” I asked.
“A shotgun, upstairs,” Donna told me. “It’s in our room in a safe. The combination is zero one four eight five. Shells are in there too.”
I took the stairs two at a time, finding Jessica on the landing at the top. Simon stood beside her, fear and confusion on his face. They both wore pajamas and looked as though they’d just woken up. “You both need to go downstairs to your grandparents,” I told her. “I think your ex has finally decided to do something about you standing in his way. Where’s Ava?”
“Her room is at the rear,” Jessica said, picking up her son and starting down the stairs.
I ran down the hallway and found Ava’s room after opening every door. She was sitting up in bed, rubbing her eyes. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Bad things, Ava,” I told her. “We need to get downstairs.”
She stood and stared at me. “I tried what you said. To talk to the shinigami. But I don’t remember much else.”
“We’ll talk later,” I told her.
“You were in my vision this time,” she said, making me pause at the door. “There were all these dead people in this house. And you were there, but I could see you. Everyone else was a blur, but you were standing above them all. And you were . . . like death. You had an ax in one hand and a sword in the other. You were . . . I can’t describe it. How were you not a blur?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”
Ava was soon moving down the stairs as I ran into Donna and Daniel’s bedroom and opened the safe, removed the Mossberg shotgun, and put in the seven shells that it took. I carried the loaded shotgun and shells downstairs as someone banged on the door.
“We just came for the boy and his mom,” the voice said. “No one has to die here today. We just want to take them to Robert.”
I jumped the banister and landed in the hallway as someone tried to force their way into the house through the locked front door. After sprinting through the house to the kitchen, I found everyone huddled on the floor in the darkness.
I passed the shotgun to Jess. “You know how to shoot, yes?”
Jess nodded, determination and fear mingling on her face.
“Good. Daniel, get everyone downstairs to the safe room. Anyone wants to get you, they’re going to have their work cut out for them.”
“We tried the phones,” Donna said, clearly frightened but determined not to show it. “Our cells don’t work, and the landline is dead.”
“Mine stopped working too,” Brooke said, sounding pained.
“I figured as much,” I said. “I think Avalon are jamming the signals, but we’ll figure that out later. Right now, we need to know their numbers and thin them out a little.”
A flashlight swept over the back garden.
“Shit, they’re surrounding the house,” Jess said, panicking.
“All of you down there,” I told them as Brooke’s phone rang.
“What the hell?” she asked, answering it and leaving it on speaker like before. “Yes? Who is this?”
I recognized the voice as soon as he spoke.
“This is Orestes,” he said. “We have your sheriff. He came to help you, betraying our trust, and now he’s going to die unless you all come out the front door with your hands up.”
Daniel placed a hand over his mouth and shook his head sadly.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?” Brooke asked.
There was the sound of someone being hit. “Brooke, don’t come out. Stay—” Sheriff King’s voice was cut off.
“You have sixty seconds,” Orestes said before hanging up.
“All of you, downstairs, now,” I told them.
“But they’ll kill him,” Ava said.
“They plan on killing all of you if you go out there,” I told her.
Simon began to cry, clinging to his mum.
I crouched down to Simon’s level. “Hey, buddy, can you be a big strong boy for a little while?” I asked him.
Simon shook his head, burying his head in his mum’s legs.
“Listen, Simon,” I said. “I’m going to go stop the bad guys, but you need to be strong for your mum, okay?”
He glanced up at me. “Like Captain America?”
Sure, just without the shield or powers. The latter of which I could really use right about now. “Just like him,” I said. “And Cap, he always wins eventually, right?”
Simon nodded.
I watched the family go through the door that led to the basement, until it was just Brooke and me sitting on the kitchen floor.
“Let’s go see what Orestes has to say,” I said, getting to my feet and walking through the house.
“You should have taken the shotgun,” Brooke told me.