I didn’t care who was staring at us during the games anymore. I didn’t care who took it upon themselves to judge me or the decisions I’d made for myself. I was just enjoying it while I could. I was grasping that happiness with both hands and reveling in it. I was with Drew and his closest friends, I was watching Tate do what he did best, and I felt more content than I had in years.
Being the pushover I was, I ended up watching a movie with more explosions than dialogue. It was still a compromise because the one he wanted to watch only had old guys in it and I at least wanted eye candy if I was going to be subjected to big booms, blood and gore.
Tate fell asleep halfway through and started snoring loudly, so I kicked his thigh until he woke up and sent him to bed while I stayed to watch the end myself, oddly invested in the weird love story that had been intertwined between explosions. It was normally the kind of thing I scoffed at, but I found myself empathizing with the heroine.
Tate’s words, my sudden identification with movie girls with big boobs and bigger butts, and suddenly missing Drewas I sat there alone, all made me start digging too deep. The moment I began to put my feelings into words, I clicked off the television and stared at the screen with distaste. I’d promised myself no defining the relationship status quo and just running with it. I was happy. I refused to look to tomorrow and beyond. Carpe diem was my new mantra in life, because I found I scared the shit out of myself if I went beyond a day.
Brushing my hair back from my face, I looked over at my phone and wondered if Drew was at The Hut. He didn’t have a cell phone, which didn’t bother me in the slightest because it was always a gamble as to whose phone he used when he wanted something. I’d gathered Slater, Harry and several others’ numbers from the game. Much longer and I’d have the entire club in my contacts list. It was the first night in a while I was spending in my own bed, and I was actually pathetic enough to physically miss him.
“Tate’s right, girl. You’re pathetic.” I laughed at myself and pushed up from the couch. Stretching out my back before picking up the popcorn bowl, empty beer bottles and heading toward the kitchen, I was more than aware I was a shitty guardian for allowing my brother a couple of beers after the game, but I didn’t honestly care. As long as no one got in our business and tattled, it really didn’t matter. He was a kid. He would have done it with or without my permission. In reality, I was his sister, not his mother, and I had to gain cool points where I could.
By the time I was through with my tidying expedition, it was so late that I was dragging my feet and hitting lights left and right as I went, grumbling about the power bill as I started to pull my shirt over my head while yawning.
The material was still hanging from my wrist when oneof the shadows moved beside me. I caught it out of the corner of my eye at first—a twitch that didn’t have a place in the darkness. Then it sprung like a panther, but less lithe and more cumbersome, knocking my breath from me. I was about to scream when what I hoped was a hand clamped down over my mouth.
My immediate reaction was to kick and fight, even as a thick arm formed a bar around my waist, locking me against the body behind mine and dragging me into the hall bathroom. I clawed at the hand over my mouth, my legs flailing as the adrenaline flooded my system and my heart pounded painfully in my chest. I twisted and grabbed for the doorframe, my fingers hooking over the wood with every ounce of strength I had. I was pulled hard, the grunt of my attacker coming as I nailed the fucker in the shin with my bare heel.
“Fuck. Calm down, kid,” Deeks hissed under his breath as I yanked the shower curtain off two of the rings in my attempt to get free.
I froze for a moment at the familiarity of the sound. My heart, now hibernating in my throat, was still doubling up beats and sending the blood through me with the ferocity of a storm driven river. My head struggled to catch up with the reality of the situation as my muscles slowly came down from high alert and into the area of ready to run if necessary. As far as they were concerned, the danger was over. It was Deeks. My head, however, wasn’t as convinced.
“What the fuck, Deeks?” I ground out in an irritated whisper after his hand dropped from my mouth. He didn’t stop moving after he released me. He was soft footing it to the window and peering out of the partly open blinds, careful not to touch a thing and indicate he was in the room.
He didn’t respond to my question. He just put a finger to his lips and gave me the universal sign for ‘get the fuck down’, sending me into a crouch as I pulled my shirt back on and tugged it down in place. My heart was still galloping, and the adrenaline seemed to be ahead of my mind again because it took me a while to catch up that there was a bigger problem at hand. The false sense of security that Deeks had brought me was slowly abating and revealing an even bigger issue.
“Who?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
He gave me a look and I nodded. I didn’t need words. I just had to process it and try to deal with it before I had a panic attack and got us both killed. Only… it wasn’t just Deeks and I in the house. It was with that realization that the instinct I was still trying so hard to adapt to reared its head. The one that screamed for me to get Tate the hell out of there and somewhere safe before it got any worse. I was on my feet and had barely made it two steps when Deeks’ arms were around me and my body was pressed up against the wall next to the bathroom door.
“Where the hell are you going, kid?”
“To get Tate,” I pushed out breathlessly.
“Don’t be fucking stupid, Ayda. Kenny already got him out. They were up front watching you. They don’t give a flying fuck about your brother. You’re the target here.”
“Me?” I practically mouthed as the fear pushed through the adrenaline and false bravado. “How long were they watching, Deeks?”
“Long enough for us to eventually figure out what they were up to, not long enough to allow Kenny time to call for back up before we realized what the fuck was going down. There were too many of them for either of us to do anythingabout it, so I snuck my fat ass in Tate’s window, locked it again and waited for you to go to bed. All we can hope for now is a miracle.”
He placed his hand over my mouth as something flickered past the window, casting a shadow to cut through the moonlight that filtered in. There was no way they could see us. I’d made sure of that because the shower was directly opposite it and it was one of those irrational things I tended to worry about.
We both stayed frozen long after he’d passed. Deeks was still behind me like a human shield, his breath moving my hair in little waves. He was worried, and that made me panic more, because Deeks was one of those people who tended to take everything in his stride.
It was so quiet I could have sworn I could hear my own heart beating. There was the occasional creak of Deeks’ cut, but other than that, there was nothing. Just the ambient sounds around us… until the scratching started outside.
It sounded like someone was pulling at the boards from the other side of the house where my room was. Then it began just outside our window, and from the front and back of the structure, until it was almost deafening. If that wasn’t bad enough, the emulated yipping started, the sound like a pack of coyotes surrounding our home. They were never in the same place twice. They moved around, bouncing from place to place and echoing through the hall. They were finally letting me know they were there, waiting for me to scatter in fear and reveal myself.
“Drew’s little bitch is in heat, boys. You smell that?” a voice shouted.
The sound of laughter echoed around the building, whileDeeks growled under his breath like a rabid bear behind me. We were surrounded, and he knew it as well as I did.
“I got a bone she can chew.”
“You see that sweet ass she’s got on her? I call first in on that.”
I’m not sure whether I made a sound or if I shuddered. I couldn’t feel a whole lot in the numbness of my fear, but Deeks seemed to know what it was doing before I did, his confidence showing in his stature. A silent promise that he would look after me no matter what it took, and I believed him, too.
“Ignore them, kid. They’re trying to smoke you out with words,” Deeks whispered, backing up and approaching the window slowly. The concern he’d had seemed to bleed out of him the moment he started moving, but I wasn’t built for a situation like this and I was terrified. Turning to place my back against the wall, I slid down it and held my knees to my chest in a death grip as I stared at the window in horror.
