I want to argue, to tell him I’m not running like a rabbit from a wolf, but there’s a brightness in his eyes I’ve never seen before.Not even when he fucked me like he wanted to drown inside me. It’s a kind of terror, but not for himself.
It’s for me.
I freeze.
He hisses: “Dahlia, move.”
A shadow passes the frosted glass, close enough to smudge the outline of a gun, a coat, a gloved hand reaching for the handle.
Bam is already moving. He throws a pot, heavy, at the front window. It explodes with a shatter, glass raining in a bright arc over the orchids. The intruder ducks on instinct, and that’s all the time Bam needs: he’s across the room and on the man, hand at the throat, knee driving up into the gut. The gun goes off—two muffled pops—and a pane of glass spiders out next to my face.
I do what I’m told. I run to the back of the greenhouse.
Like a coward.
Not like the daughter I was raised to be.
The back wall is a mesh of glass and iron struts. I aim for the window closest to the hedge, praying it won’t hurt too much to break the window. I don’t make it before the next shot: the door is shattered, another goon soldier in black with a gun up, eyesscanning the steam. Bam is a shadow behind him, grabbing the shooter’s wrist and slamming it against the frame.
There’s a crack.
The gun drops, but the hand doesn’t; Bam twists it until the wrist is pointing the wrong direction and the shooter’s howling, then uses the man as a shield and charges the next shape coming through the door.
Blood spatters across the glass. A flowerpot topples. Somewhere, one of my orchids gets crushed under a combat boot.
I get to the window. It’s locked, but the wood is old and soft. I haul up a terra-cotta pot and smash at the bottom pane until it gives, shoving my arm through the slivers, not caring about the bite of glass. The cold air floods into the humidity, and the night outside is so bright, so loud, I almost can’t breathe.
Behind me, Bam is roaring. Not a sound of pain—he doesn’t do pain—but the kind of noise that clears a room just by existing. He grabs one by the throat, lifts him up, and throws him through the center bench. The man lands in a heap, gun lost in the dirt.
Glass cuts me, I curse, fingers slick and stinging. Knocking some of the shards from the pane, I squeeze through, tearing the sleeve of my shirt and maybe my skin, too. The glass catches me at the ribs, but I’m past the point of feeling.
The hedge outside is brittle and cold, but I tumble through, rolling on the frost-razored grass. I don’t look back until Ihit the ground, and even then, all I see is the light inside the greenhouse, silhouettes fighting, Bam’s body turning and twisting and shoving another man against the wall until it’s painted with red.
He’s winning.
But that’s never the end of it.
The gunfire stops, or maybe I stop hearing it. The cold burns the cut on my side, and I clamp my hand over it, stumbling up and over the bank toward the old, overgrown orchard. My feet are bare and the ground is a carpet of needles, rocks, the sharp grind of winter frost. Every step is agony. Every step is away from him.
Shame flashes through me with each step.
The campus is empty, the buildings closed and dark. The only light is the glow of the greenhouse and the pulse of the moon, huge and white and so close it’s like a god’s eye. I run, but not fast enough, because the cold rips the air from my lungs and the pain in my feet threatens to drop me at every step.
At the edge of the orchard, I trip over a root and slam face-first into the mud. Earth, sweet and cold floods my senses, and for a second I just lay there, sucking in a breath, letting the pain swallow me whole.
Footsteps behind.
I turn, ready to claw out the eyes of the asshole that tries to drag me back.
But it isn’t them.
It’s Bam.
He’s limping, blood running down his left arm, but his eyes are wild with the kind of energy that could melt stone. In his hand is a pistol, the muscles in his forearm trembling slightly. He grabs me under the arms, yanks me upright, and says, “Keep moving. More coming.”
“Where?” I gasp. My throat is on fire, my ribs screaming.
He pushes me forward, hand so tight they bruise instantly. “Chapel,” he pants. “Walls are thick. Can bottleneck them.”
