Page 66 of Ricochet

“Oh, shit!” The one between my thighs pressed into me, squeezing the bones in my legs as he shifted about. “Get your fuckin’ gun! Shoot the fucker!”

A thunderclap bang echoed through the trees. Blue’s growls and barks followed. Three more bangs. More barking. Four bangs. A yelp. Each noise had my muscles jerking, and I kicked at the attacker below, knocking him back on his ass.

Fire ripped through my scalp as the other one tugged my hair, and a sharp sting burst across my cheek with a slap.

The one I’d kicked scrambled up onto my thighs, digging his fingers into my flesh. “Hold the fuck still, bitch!”

I pushed past the dryness in my throat, and screamed. “Help! Someone, help!”

Terror curled through my veins in a rush at the reality that the men intended to and would tear into me.

“You try to steal from us? Huh, cunt? Try to take our fuckin’ truck?”

I didn’t even know which of them spoke, but the voice sliced through my skull, robbing me of the blackness that clung to the fringes of my consciousness. My head spun, the world tilt-a-whirling before my eyes, and all I could make out was the stench of their breath and the digging of their nails into my skin.

More weight pressed into my body, and I turned to find the man Blue had attacked had returned, his jacket torn and bloodied. Blue? Where did Blue go?

As their awkward hands fumbled with my shirt, hope slipped away. How fucking stupid! Why had I run?

I could see the mansion from where I lay, mocking me—my sanctuary from Michael, from the men ravaging my body, standing off in the distance like an impenetrable fortress. On the cold ground, in the woods between abandoned houses, where no one would hear my screams, I could die, ravaged, beaten and alone. The thought crushed down on me, pounding terror through my body.

A hard slap stung my thighs. “Stop fucking moving!”

I didn’t even realize I’d continued to struggle against them. My body had gone numb, my mind disconnecting, falling into darkness. That same hopeless pit of doom that’d prompted me to run in the first place, to keep from getting sent back to a monster, just like the ones tearing into my clothes.

My thighs jostled with the wrenching of my jeans. I stared up at the man above me, and like a nightmare, his features contorted until they’d morphed into the sickening familiar face of Michael. “You love this, don’t ya? You get what you come for? This is what you was looking for when you tried to steal our shit, yeah?”

Tears blurred his smile, and a sob ripped from my chest. “Please,” I begged. “Don’t do this.”

A shot rang out. Warm spray hit my face, followed by a tortured outcry. Another blast of fluid hit my stomach, and a mass of weight fell on top of me, knocking wind from my lungs, as warmth oozed down my belly.

Like an answered prayer, my arms were released. A scuffle at my head knocked my ear, yanking my hair.

As a single gunshot blasted the air, the man above me stopped screaming. His body slumped to the side, crackling the leaves with his fall.

It happened so fast I couldn’t keep up with what was happening. My gaze darted toward the right, and I didn’t know whether to plead harder or whimper with relief.

Nick’s silhouette stood for only seconds, before he charged headfirst into the guy beside me, knocking him to his back.

Trapped beneath the lifeless body of a man who’d almost raped me, I screamed and heaved until I’d thrown the deadweight off me, scrambling backward until my head hit a solid surface. I startled to the left, relieved to find it was only the trunk of a tree, and tugged my jeans back up onto my hips.

Straddling the stranger’s body, lip peeled back in a snarl, Nick pounded his fist into the bastard’s face. The sickening crunch of busted cartilage turned my stomach. When at last the man stilled beneath him, Nick pushed up from the savage devil, aimed his gun at the man’s face, and shot a bullet square at his forehead.

My muscles flinched, breath trapped in my chest as I sat in complete shock. Through parted lips, a scream yearned to tear out of me, but I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t do more than stare in disbelief at the macabre that surrounded me.

I caught Nick’s gaze and drew in a breath. His enlarged pupils merged into the blue, giving him a crazed, rabid appearance. Burning with wrath and rage. For a split second, my heart hammered, as he glared at me like he’d attack me next, but the echoing crackle of branches diverted his attention, and he took off, presumably after one of the men. Perhaps one I hadn’t accounted for.

Every muscle in my body shook. On the forest floor in front of me, all three of my attackers lay unmoving and face down in a converging pool of blood that seeped into the thirsty ground.

“Trey!” At the sound of another foreign voice, I scrambled for one of the fallen guns and aimed it at the source.

The young boy who’d alerted the men back at the truck stood a couple yards off. Eyes wide, mouth agape, he stared at the gore, but as his gaze fell on me, he twisted away and darted off into the dark woods.

Lowering the gun, I curled my knees into my body and sobbed.

Minutes passed before the thump of boots had me lifting the gun again. I found myself aiming at Nick.

He rushed to my side and pushed back strands of hair. “Fuck, Aubree.”