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“What are you two doing?” I whispered, absently spooning up some ice cream and shoving it into my mouth.

I’d just moved my spoon down for a third dip when one of them lifted his hand toward his car, presumably using his keychain to pop the trunk open.

Then movement caught my eye as a young girl came out of Drew’s house. The further she moved down the driveway, the more I realized that I knew that form. It was Attie, Drew’s daughter.

She was nearly all the way down the driveway when she heard the men talking.

She was shielded by the bushes that ran down the length of Drew’s driveway, and the men never saw or heard her.

She stopped and turned, peering over the bushes.

And screamed.

I dropped my spoon and my bowl of ice cream and started running.

The front door was locked, bolted and chained, giving me a very hard time as I tried to get out in my haste to get to Attie.

Once the last lock was undone, I slammed the door open.

It hit the wall with a loud thud, but I barely noticed as I started to run down the middle of my yard, straight for the men that now had Attie by the arm.

“Let her go!” I screamed. “Now! Drew!”

I screamed for Drew so loud that my throat throbbed.

“Fuck me!” One of the men cursed as he started to move toward his car.

Attie, though, fought back, hard.

So hard, in fact, that I was initially surprised.

I froze beside her, unsure of where to grab her to help or to let her continue on her own. She figured it out without me, but she got herself free and lurched for the car, grabbing something that was inside the trunk and pulling.

I chose that time to rear back and hit the other man that was still there, but he caught my fist so effortlessly that I was momentarily shocked.

He hadn’t even been facing me, how the hell had he seen me?

And I wouldn’t get into the fact that he was still holding my hand as well as pulling a gun out from under his front jacket.

I heard Drew’s shout from somewhere behind me, causing me to turn and stare at him running, shirtless and shoeless, directly to us.

He had a gun in his hand as well, but he wasn’t aiming it at anything.

“Freeze, Smith,” the man that was holding me ordered. He had his gaze on the man behind the wheel of the car. “Put your hands on the wheel and I won’t shoot you.”

Everyone froze, except for Drew, who kept coming until he was in reaching distance of not just me, but his daughter as well.

Attie had her arms around something that was bundled in a blanket, her eyes wild and scared as she let her gaze dart around this way and that, looking like her life had just been thrown upside down.

“Fuck you,” Smith said, revving the engine.

The distinct ‘thump’ of the car being put into reverse rocked through the still night air, and before any of us could even react, the man holding the gun on the one in the car pulled the trigger.

The car started to roll backward, but the man inside of it was too dead to stop it.

The one who’d just shot the other man then turned his gun on Drew.

“I’m a cop, if you shoot me, I’ll shoot you, too. Then your kid and your woman will have to bury you,” the man said.