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“Where’s the boy?”

“What boy?” She looks up at him, her face a perfect mask of confusion.

The question throws Antonio, and he shifts his gun to the other hand. “There was another kid. Where the fuck is the other kid?”

“Oh …” she whispers, and her voice sounds creepy as fuck. “You saw the demon too?”

“Demons aren’t real,” he snaps, but Sammy’s thrown him. “There was a kid. Now, where the fuck is the kid?”

She breaks down crying again, and half of me wants to tell her to run while she still can, but I’m so confused about what’s happening.

From outside, I hear a whistle.

Antonio snaps toward the sound, and then his gaze moves right to me. “What the fuck is this?”

“I told you not to open the door.”

Another whistle answers the first, and then more crying starts outside.

He slams the door shut and locks it, then turns his gun on Sammy.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Please help me,” she begs. Only when she looks up again, she’s smiling. “Or they’ll do to me what they’ve done to your friend.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

LYNX

My stomach is a twisted lump of lead as I creep up onto the roof of the cabin, my cubs handling things below. I was out-fucking-voted by the most annoying little humans I’ve ever met. After tonight, I’ll probably never talk to the miscreants again.

The lead in my gut twists tighter.

I’m verging on the level of panic that makes it hard to breathe, but at least I know Leo and Josie are far away by now. I only agreed to Leo’s part in this on the terms that he ran as soon as he could. But now Sammy is inside the fucking house. That was never part of the plan.

I watch from overhead as Jeffrey sneaks down the side of the cabin toward Gracie’s cries. He has no idea what’s waiting for him, and maybe she was right that kids are constantly underestimated, because the second he sees her, he lowers his gun.

“What are you doing out here?” he asks gruffly.

“I lost my sister.”

“We’ll help find her.” He hesitates. “Come in, we’ll help you.”

“Thank you!” Gracie throws herself at his feet, and being that close to him has my grip on my knives tightening. Especially when JJ creeps out of the shadowy trees behind him. Jeffrey is too focused on the commotion at his feet to see JJ coming, and the kid swings his club with the force of a battering ram. It connects with Jeffrey’s head, and he drops.

Doesn’t move.

They actually fucking did it.

Gracie takes his gun, and JJ checks for a pulse before giving me a thumbs-up.

Well, lucky for him, he’s alive. If I’d been down there, he might not have had the same result. I leave them to tie him up and creep toward the front of the cabin. Jeffrey is nothing to me; Antonio is the one I’m here for.

I reach over the top of the house and knock three times on the door with my blade. There’s no answer. Of course there isn’t. These men with their guns think themselves so tough and powerful until they’re in a position they don’t control.

And I’m more than happy to be the one taking that control from them.