He grabs me, pulling me away from the window. “We have to move! Now!”
The smell of burning wood fills the air, sharp and bitter, mixing with the iron tang of adrenaline. Cipher tugs us toward the back door and rear exit through the kitchen and I fall in line behind him.
I catch his arm. “Wait. My case files?—”
He shakes his head. We both turn to see my cabin being consumed by fire for the second time tonight.
“Fuck ’em! Let’s go, Harlow. There’s no time.”
“Agreed!”
He yanks open the back door and the world erupts into chaos around us.
Behind us, my front door explodes inward in a shower of splinters and fire. The roar is deafening. For a heartbeat, all I know is the sound of my own scream and the heat of Cipher’s body slamming into mine, dragging me down to the floor, covering me as shrapnel rains around us.
Smoke chokes my lungs. Cipher’s weight is crushing, but I cling to him, arms locked around his neck. He shoves up, flips the kitchen table and rolls us behind the massive plank of wood.
Heavy footfalls carry through the cabin.
“Stay down,” he hisses, shoving a gun into my hand. His eyes are wild, but steady. “If I tell you to run, you run. Don’t look back.”
I’m already shaking my head no before he finishes. “I’m not leaving you.”
He grins, and it looks as wild and unhinged as the man himself. “That’s my girl.”
The footsteps stop just outside the kitchen entryway. A voice—raspy, hateful—calls out, “Come on out now, and I just might let you keep breathin’.”
I’d recognize Grudge’s voice out of a million deadbeats.
“I reckon your prez is fit to be tied I slipped loose, but hell. I couldn’t let you Savages hog all the fun, now could I? ’Sides, this book here is too damn valuable to let y’all keep, especially with one sweet little name sittin’ pretty right at the top. Agent Harlow Montgomery. Didn’t figure you’d be shackin’ up with her, Cipher. Gotta say, I enjoyed the show. Looks like it’s my lucky night… Two birds, one stone. Merry damn Christmas to me.”
Grudge holds up a black book I don’t recognize, but I am getting the idea it holds a lot of secrets.
“You sick fuck,” I bellow over the raging noise of the fire.
His responding laugh makes my stomach roll with disgust.
Cipher rises, weapon leveled, muscles taut. I’m shaking, but I raise the gun, training it on the door. My heart is a sledgehammer in my chest.
Cipher glances at me, one last time. “No more secrets. If we get out of this, I want everything. All of you. No running for either of us and no lies. I need you, Harlow. Always.”
I nod, the truth ringing between us louder than the fire and louder than the threat outside.
“I’m yours, Cipher. Always was.”
Glass shatters all around us. The wood of the cabin splinters and the world comes crashing in. I hold on to that truth like it’s the only thing that matters and use it as a shield against the darkness trying to kill us.
8
HARLOW
Snow whirls in ragged spirals through the busted-out windows. The world around us quickly turns into an inferno. The glow from my burning cabin crackles along the floorboards, painting Cipher’s skin in streaks of orange. Flurries of ash mix with snow. I taste smoke, gunpowder, and the metallic tang of blood already drying at the corner of my mouth. My palms are slick around the grip of Cipher’s spare Glock. My heart hammers against my ribs and I take the thumping as both a warning and a promise that if we survive this, we get to have our do-over.
“Stay low,” Cipher breathes, crouched beside me behind the flipped kitchen table. His green eyes are all I can see through the gloom. There’s a burning wildness about him. I think this is the first time I’ve seen him in his true element.
Around us, the night explodes. A shotgun blast turns the table to splinters. Glass erupts from the window to our right. I fling myself flat, cheek pressed to the cold, splintery floorboard, but there’s nothing that can protect me from the shards of glass and wood.
I hear another crack of a shotgun going off. The scattered buckshot whines past my ear, close enough to carve a line of heat across my scalp.
