BRODIE
SHH.
I put my hand over Emery’s lips in a warning to be quiet, and climbed swiftly and silently from the bed. Training my eyes on the doorway beyond, I slid open the nightstand drawer and pulled my piece from it, pulling the slide without a sound.
I was naked, but didn’t stop to pull on clothes. If it was who I suspected, I didn’t have time. On the other side of the bed, Emery was sliding out and arranging the pillows to resemble a figure beneath the blankets. She lifted her eyebrows and nodded toward the bed, a clear demand for me to do the same. I did so, feeling a grudging admiration. Although simplistic, it was an idea that might buy us a few seconds.
Sound came again, this time the distinct metallic noise of locks tumbling. I situated myself on the inside of the open door and motioned sharply for Emery to close herself up in the bathroom, but she merely rolled her eyes and took up position just behind the door. With a soundless snarl I pressed the gun into her hand, ignoring the shake of her head, and turned my attention back to the main room. She was a distraction I didn’t need but I could do nothing about it.
There was a barely noticeable waft of cold air, then asnick. I closed my eyes, orienting sound and sense. That had been the door opening and closing. With vision impaired, my sense of sound was heightened. I heard a slide of movement across the wooden planked floor, a tiny creak unnoticeable at any other time. Measured tread, discernible more through the feel of disturbed space than by any real sound.
There was a pause—him stopping, I guessed, to assess the open kitchen and great room for any humanity. Then the unmistakable click of a weapon being cocked.
I guess making the hit look like an accident was no longer priority.
I opened my eyes, readied myself. When the gun preceded the intruder’s entry into the room, I burst into motion, knocking the weapon from his hand with a sharp chop to the wrist. He fired a split second before releasing the gun and sending it skittering across the floor, the report a deafening blast in this enclosed space. I had a second to see a lithe form clad in black with a balaclava over his head before he sprang into action, a fist punching toward me with predatory intent. I swerved and returned several chopping swipes that he avoided with swift grace, backing away. Another instant, and I knew who I fought, the dizzying speed and vicious grace of his movement identifying factors as much as a fingerprint. Carson was good. But I was better.
“Why the mask, Carson?” I pressed him hard with a series of feinting attacks, pushing him into retreating from the bedroom and into the main room.
There was a blur of movement as he ripped the covering from his face. A twisted smile played across his features and he shrugged. “Drama, lad. Why aren’t you doing your job?” He moved his arm, and steel flashed in the light from the fireplace.
Knife.“Fucker,” I muttered. I hated knives at the best of times, and they were particularly bad for a swinging dick. For the first time I regretted my habit of sleeping in the nude. Carson advanced, a short-bladed knife with a curving end shining dully in the dark room as he swung and swiped and slashed. I leaped backwards, circling to move his line of vision away from Emery standing in the doorway of the bedroom, gun pointed. We were moving so fast I knew there was no way for her to get a shot off without potentially shooting me.
He lunged, the knife coming perilously close to my neck. I bobbed and blocked, barely feeling the nicks as the knives glanced off my forearms. Minuscule drops of blood flew in concert with the whip wire sound of the knife.
I grunted as we danced with dueling kicks and the strange intimacy that only knives yield.
He laughed as he swayed slightly in front of me, testing my reflexes. “I’m gonna carve you and that girl o’er there up, Gallagher.”
I motioned with my hand. “Come on, then.”
Again he laughed, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “Maybe I’ll have a little fun with her, first. She’s a right stunner—”
Metal screeched across stone as I sprang, powering him back into the fireplace screen, hands raised and pinning his knife hand above his head. He barely blinked, his other hand shooting forward with a second blade and managing to carve a shallow gash in my rib cage before I spun out of range. The threat resonated, blurring the pain into nothingness. If I failed, Emery would pay the cost.
The gun fired, the muzzle flash blinding in the dark. There was a stumble of movement from my right and a pained curse. She’d gotten him, but hadn’t killed him. I’d no sooner had the thought then he was back upon me with the knife. I went for the torso this time, enduring the slash of blade upon the skin of my back as I muscled him to the floor and wrestled him into the position I required. I was slick with blood and sweat and he had no traction to turn himself loose as I wrapped myself around him and pulled him back into my chest, my forearm an unyielding bar against his throat.
Abandoning the knife with a clatter on the floor, his fists reached futilely for my face. I pulled him back harder, watching as the punches turned to slaps against my arms, weaker and weaker. Beyond the roaring in my ears came a muffled noise from feet away, and my eyes rose to meet Emery’s. Hers were wide with fear and something else…revulsion, maybe. Neither of us looked away as I squeezed until I was rewarded with a crack, and Carson’s stiffened form went slack.
I shoved him to the side just in time to catch Emery as she released the gun, letting it fall with a metallic thud to the floor, and dropped to her knees beside it. In the dim light of the fireplace I could see her eyes were wide, unfocused, her breath coming shallow and fast. “Em.” She looked at me in terror, one hand coming to her chest, and I cursed. Fucking panic attack. I pulled her to me, hissing out a breath as the movement jostled a cut, and tucked her into my chest. “Breathe,macushla.You’re safe. Look at me—” On and on I murmured nonsense, letting the sound of my voice and the stroke of my hand along her spine draw her gradually back. I felt the panic recede in the breaths that evened out, and the sudden stiffening of her spine as her palm touched my side and came away wet.
She shuffled herself up, clicked on a light. “Jesus, Brodie, you’re bleeding.” As I eased myself to my feet, I heard her in the bathroom, running water and cursing under her breath. She was back in seconds, a wet towel in her hands. “Sit.”
The command was sharp, and I sat heavily in one of the kitchen chairs, palms turned up on my knees. Adrenaline was fading quickly, leaving me exhausted and all too aware of the night’s implications. We needed to regroup. If Carson had found us, there—
“Stop it.” I looked up at Emery in surprise. She was pressing the towel gingerly over each arm, looking for the cuts amidst all the blood. “Stop thinking,” she continued. “I can see your mind spinning and calculating, and you need to stop. We’ll figure it out after we get all of this taken care of.”
“We need to change our plans. It had to have been that damn SIM card—”
“And we will.” She held the towel against the slash on my rib cage and held my gaze at the same time. “I promise, we’ll figure it out. But not until we get you fixed up. Is there a first aid kit? I think a few of these will need stitches.”
“Pantry.” I took the towel and began cleaning the cuts myself, while Emery fetched the first aid kit. “Grab that whiskey, too, love.”
Emery was back fast with the necessary items and I took a swig of the whiskey. I had stitched myself back together numerous times and alcohol was a necessity. I watched dubiously as Emery began threading a cutting needle with nylon. “You ever done this before?”
She glanced up from her task. “Nervous?” I took another swallow of whiskey and she snickered, despite the tension lining her mouth. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re still pretty.”
I watched closely as she began on the first, a deep slash on my rib cage around four inches long. After the first few stitches I relaxed. She knew what she was doing. She stitched four different gashes with disturbing efficiency and applied butterfly bandages to the other, smaller cuts. I pretended not to notice the barely perceptible tremble in her hands, or the way she had trouble looking at me. She was holding it together, but barely.
