Page 50 of Moon's Promise

“If that’s true, why are the police with you?”

“For the same reason—because Eryn was missing.”

“She ain’t missing. She’s right here. You all are the feds, wanting to see what’s in the house!”

“I don’t care what’s in the house. I was worried about Eryn!”

“You better get your ass out of here!”

Another shot rang out, hitting the door she was hiding behind.

“I was going to!” she screamed at them wildly. “I wanted you to move the trucks so I could turn around!”

When she heard several shots being fired, Larissa hunched herself into a ball. She barely lifting her head but saw the sheriff’s vehicle slowly coming to where she was parked. Gaping, she watched as the sheriff maneuvered himself across the front seat to the passenger’s side to fling the door open. Throwing himself to the ground, Knox then aimed his pistol toward the house.

“You can’t shoot. There’s a pregnant woman inside!” Larissa yelled at him.

Knox didn’t take his eyes off the house.

“She worth dying over?” he snarled loudly.

Larissa pressed her hand to her belly. Eryn wasn’t the only one pregnant. She had a duty to her own child to survive. Knox was a husband and a father; he deserved to go home to his family, too.

“Eryn, make them stop!” Larissa screamed at the top of her lungs.

“Stop it, Tanner!” a woman yelled. “If you had taken her to the hospital when I told you, none of this would have happened!”

“I’m not going back to jail because of that bitch!”

Larissa and Knox stared at each other as the man and woman yelled back and forth.

“Tanner, what are we going to do?” another male voice whined.

“All of you, shut the fuck up!” a man yelled over them, who Larissa assumed was Tanner.

“Woman, can’t you count? There’s only two of them, and there’s eight of us. We’ll take care of them, then clean the house out. Jay—”

Larissa felt her heart drop when she could no longer hear what he was saying. From the flurry of movement on the porch, she reasoned they had been sent out to surround them.

Frightened, she gave a whimper. Not wanting to appear like a wimp, she pressed her knuckles against her mouth.

When she raised her eyes, she saw Knox’s deadpan face looking at her.

“How in the hell did you manage to stumble into a drug house in Bumfuck, Egypt?”

She lowered her hand long enough to mutter, “Luck, I guess.”

Knox didn’t seem to appreciate her humor.

“What are we going to do?”

The sheriff pressed a button on his shoulder pad before he turned his eyes back to her. His face turned grimmer as Knox started giving her the stark facts.

“The way they graded this hillside, and the house looking down on the road, right about now, I’d start praying for a miracle.”

Larissa swallowed hard. She’d never been so scared in her life.

“Isn’t there something you can do? Like call SWAT?”

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