"Put your gun down." I can take out a quarter thrown in the air at fifty yards. It'd be easy enough to put a bullet right between his beady little eyes, but I can't risk him twitching so his gun goes off.
He hisses with pain. "Then tell her to get her damn teeth outta my arm."
"What the fuck was your name?" Piston cocks his head, staring at him. "Pete? Keith?"
“Zeke,” Beast supplies.
“Right! Zeke! Sorry about your dog, Zeke, but look on the bright side, I don’t think hell allows pets anyway.”
The guy looks like he wants to throw a reply back, but he's too busy gritting his teeth together to keep from screaming. Sandra looks me dead in the eyes and raises her hand. Three fingers, two fingers, one finger.
Just as her last finger goes down, she ducks and I pull the trigger.
Blood paints the wall behind him in a spatter as the bullet exits the back of his head. His hand drops to the floor, the gun clattering away as it falls from his lifeless fingers.
Sandra blinks, her eyes wide as saucers as she realizes what just happened. She lets his arm drop, blood on her lips, her expression oddly empty.
"Baby girl." I snap my fingers to get her attention. “Stick with us, honey. Freak out later. You okay? Has he hurt you?"
She freezes for a long moment as she seriously considers my question. Her chest rises and falls quickly, still in the claws of adrenaline. "No… no, I don't think so." Then she turns her head, leans over, and loses whatever was in her stomach.
"Eyes on me! There's nothing back there you need to look at." I put my gun away and hold out my hand. "Come here."
I get a little nod, then she wipes her mouth on her sleeve and reaches for me. I pull her to her feet and yank her in tight,squeezing her against me like I'm never gonna fucking let her go again. She hiccups. “H-he…” A deep breath and then another. She grabs my shirt and clings to me, pressing her face into my chest. Tears wet the front of my shirt, and all I can do is hold her.
Piston rips the blanket off the bed and throws it over the dead guy. Even covered, we use ourselves to shield Sandra from seeing the body as we gently guide her out of the room. She’s still sniffling and clinging to my hand like a lifeline, but she’s moving and we need her the fuck outta here.
"Everything good?" Mack's at the top of the stairs, gun out and giving us a hard look.
"All clear up here." Beast runs his fingers through her hair, petting her gently. "How’s it down there?"
"Got three guys. None of them tried anything stupid so they're still alive." Mack glances over at Sandra again. "We leaving them that way?"
Piston nods. "Bring in whichever looks the smartest.”
“Okay, but just warning you, not a great selection,” Badass says with a smirk.
He comes back holding a scrawny guy by the back of his shirt. “How about this one?”
“Good enough.” I step in close, looking him up and down with disdain. “Bet you think you’re about to join poor Zeke in the afterlife, aren’t you?”
The guy whimpers.
“Bloodmoney, right?”
He nods.
“I want you to go back to whoever you report to and send a message. We have our eyes on you. One of you touched one of mine and I don’t take kindly to that.”
“S—she came to us!” he whines.
“I don’t fucking care.”
"Buncha dogs out back and a fighting ring." Mack's sour expression makes it clear exactly how he feels about that. "You guys get her somewhere safe. We'll clean this place up. Badass called in a few more boys to help. Gotta get it done fast."
The whole time, we haven't taken our hands off Sandra for a fucking second. She takes a deep breath. “I can tell you who to call to collect the dogs. Our shelter isn’t big enough, and Travis… My boss brought dogs here. There’s no way he didn’t know what was going on. I wasn’t sure until I saw that guy who came to the shelter, but when I told them Travis sent me, they invited me in right away.”
I'm about to say some choice words, but Beast beats me to it. "What the fuck were you thinking? You went there fucking alone? Right into their fucking house?"
