A flash of movement between the trees caught my eye. I pointed and started forward.
"Wait," Mannix started to say, but then he and Ice were following me, probably into an ambush.
"There's another one over there," Ice said.
I turned and followed his line of sight. He was right. There were two, maybe three people hidden amongst the trees, waiting for us.
"Is this where we turn around and get the hell out of here?" I asked. I didn't want to, but walking straight into an ambush was dumber than fuck.
"We can deal with them," Mannix said. "I want to know who the hell thinks they can fuck with us. They should know by now we fuck back twice as hard."
"At least twice," Ice agreed.
"Maybe several times." Mannix nodded.
"The amount of times doesn't matter," Ice said with a shrug. "We can work that out later."
"Why don't you wave a flag telling them where we are? So they can come and get us?" I said sarcastically. We weren't exactly being quiet.
"I wasn't going for stealth," Mannix said darkly. "Let them know where we are. It'll be the last thing they learn before they die."
"Let's not hurry that too much," Ice said. "I want to have fun with these assholes. After everything they put Kennedy through."
I didn't know what that was yet, but I grunted my agreement. Even if they lured her away with chocolate and took good care of her, I wanted to fuck them up.
"Did someone mention fun?" Hunter Brantley stepped through the trees, followed by Parker, Lila Bell, and finally Kennedy.
I ignored him and hurried forward to give her a hug instead. The moment she was in my arms, I didn't want to let her go again.
"Are you okay?" I leaned back to take a good look at her.
She didn't seem harmed. Her hair was messy and her clothes were rumpled. Her feet were bare but I saw no visible bruises on her.
"I'm fine," she assured me. "If you know someone named Tony, you might want to look into him."
"Several," Ice said with a laugh. "Things just got very uncomfortable for everyone with the name Tony that's been anywhere near Dusk Bay for the last year."
That was excessive, but I didn't bother to mention it. Better he took it too far than not far enough.
Without waiting for me to step back, Mannix and Ice both put their arms around her and held her before stepping back and returning their attention to whoever was waiting for us.
"I brought some others with us," Kennedy said.
She looked back over her shoulder as Chelsea appeared, Storm Keller and Daniel Frost right behind her, both a wall of rugby-playing muscle. Nothing I was intimidated by, but I wasn't the one whose face was about to be turned inside out.
"Chels," Ice called out happily. He stepped away to give her a hug and offer a fist bump to her boyfriends. "Glad you could come and give us a hand."
Storm shrugged. "Anyone who kidnaps women needs a punch in the face."
"A punch in the face for starters,” Frost agreed. "Who are we killing?"
"We need to determine that," Hunter said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's go and find out, shall we?" He looked like this was some kind of game.
That was pretty standard for either of the twins. They lived for shit like this. They'd probably die for it too, but that was not my problem.
"Thanks for the party invitation, by the way," Parker said as they made their way past us toward the shadows in the trees.
"Yeah," I said with a grunt, and trudged along beside them.
