Vito cried out. “Grace!”
Pounding feet sounded from inside, and I could practically hear Mable’s feet as they screeched to a stop on the floor.
“What the fuck is going on here?” Mable cried.
“Back inside!” Creed barked. “Both of you. Right the fuck now!”
I backed up quickly and carefully, bumping into Mable as I went.
I closed and locked the door, then hurried to look out the window across the room that gave me a great view of what was happening on the front porch. Mable squeezed in next to me, practically pulling the blinds off the wall in her haste to see.
We couldn’t see much, either. Just my dad on the floor, looking in horror at what was happening behind the large shrubs that he’d planted twenty years ago.
I could also see Creed’s feet, but that was it.
“What’s going on?” Odin barked.
“I…”
“My best friend’s mother and stepfather were here,” Mable said stiffly, pushing herself away from the window and walking to where Romeo had come in off the back porch. She moved straight into his arms. “Grace pulled a gun. Shot Vito and then was about to shoot Creed but he slammed her into the ground before she could.” Mable moaned. “Cody’s dead.”
Romeo swiftly inhaled, pulling Mable into his arms. “What?”
A loud fist banged on the door, and I moved to open it.
Boone cut me off. “Uh-uh. Go back there. Sit down. Don’t move. You’re not supposed to be doing anything strenuous anyway.”
I did what he said, sitting down with a heavy thunk.
Boone cautiously opened the door, keeping the majority of his body out of the door’s line of sight, and effectively blocking me from sight.
“Get out here and put some pressure on this dumbass’s wound,” Creed muttered through clenched teeth. “She must’ve hit an artery when she shot him. Also, call the cops. Grace is unconscious. Maybe dead. I don’t know. My fuckin’ fingers are freezing and I can’t tell.”
“What?” Dad hollered.
Mable started to sob.
I gasped when the back door opened, but instantly relaxed when Courtland led Charleigh inside.
She found me and mouthed, “What the fuck?”
I shook my head.
Hours later, when the worst had passed, I sat cocooned in Creed’s arms, wrapped in a comforter, sitting around a firepit in the middle of a snowstorm.
Luckily, the firepit was mostly covered, with a small chimney going through the very top directing the smoke out.
I was deliciously full, overly tired, and extremely exhausted.
Yet, we still had a house full of people.
Creed had only gotten back a few moments ago.
When he’d gotten there, he’d picked me up from my seat, planted his own ass in my seat, then curled me into the curve of his arms.
Bernice, at my side, had said, “Awwww.”
Creed had flipped her off, but he’d done it with a smile on his face.
