“When did you slip under the bed?” I asked.
“I heard someone—or something—climbing outside the window. Thought it was an animal at first, but I slipped under the bed just in case. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have done this unless I knew they intended to take us alive. I knew whoever it was would try to take you so you could be pressed for intel.”
“Bypressed for intel, you mean…”
“Tortured.” The way he said it, it was as though he not only understood the weight of it, but it also triggered some sort of fear of what that would mean for me if I found myself in that position.
As I grabbed my shirt off the floor, Liam’s gaze shifted to my arm.
“What is that?” he asked through his teeth, almost as if he was going to haul off and beat the crap out of me for having an injury.
“Your friend pushed me back when I was going at him with the knife.”
“Does it hurt?” He rubbed his thumb gently over the pink spot, and I cringed. He scowled. “That motherfucker.”
“Liam, let it go. I’ll be fine.”
As much as it stung, knowing that we were finally going to have some goddamn answers about what had happened a few nights earlier was enough to help me push through the pain. However, I could tell by the way Liam’s expression didn’t let up that it wasn’t going to be as easy as me telling him to let it go.
We had started down the stairs together when the front door opened and Kyle entered with two others. Like Kyle, they wore all-black and held what looked like their own ski masks. Ski masks and black clothes seemed to be the thing to wear if you were involved in shady-ass shit.
“Well, well.” The woman, who I figured was the Tara they’d referred to, offered Liam a smile. “Long time no see.”
“Too long,” he grumbled as he stomped down the stairs.
They all seemed surprised by the way he approached before he lurched at Kyle.
“Motherfucker,” he snapped as he threw a punch, which nailed Kyle in his cheek.
Kyle went flying back into the living area, over the coffee table.
“Holy shit,” I murmured as Kyle sat up, grinning like a maniac. As he pushed to his feet, Liam charged him again, not like a man, but like some sort of rhinoceros stampeding across the cabin. He leaped over the coffee table, and as he threw another punch, Kyle snatched his arm and spun him around, throwing him to the floor. Kyle pounced on him, laying a few punches into Liam’s face.
I hurried down the rest of the steps. This had to fucking stop!
“Oh, let them play,” the guy beside Tara said, seeming about as unfazed by the display as she did.
Tara ran her fingers through her lengthy red bangs, smirking as she watched them duke it out the way she might have watched some pleasant movie. “Just like old times,” she added.
I held off, waiting to ensure it didn’t get too serious, as Kyle called out, “I came here to save your ass, and this is the thanks I get?”
“You didn’t have to rough Ty up so you could get a rise out of a little brawl. If you want to fight me, just fucking say so.”
As Liam finished his sentence, he pulled his legs back and kicked Kyle off him, launching him back to the sofa, which Kyle toppled right over.
“Hey, guys! I’m fine,” I said, but the way Liam hopped to his feet and went back for Kyle, that fact seemed to be irrelevant.
Tara turned to me and offered a friendly smile. “I’m Tara. And you are…?”
As we shook, I introduced myself.
“This is Mick.”
As Liam and Kyle continued their brawl in the living area, Mick seemed totally unaffected by their quarrel. He was younger than Liam or Kyle, maybe in his thirties. He wore a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a smile that was charming as fuck, reminding me of the sort my buddy Jesse would have offered a pal.
Keeping my eye on the action in the living room, I noticed Liam decking Kyle to the point where he collapsed onto the floor.
“Holy shit.”
