Page 47 of Monsters in the Dark

“But do you know how to use them?” the blonde taunted.

“If you don’t leave, you’re going to find out,” I shot back.

“Well, since we’ve got guns of our own, I’m not sure how well that’s going to work out for you, sweetheart,” the brunette said, and I should have just shot them when I’d first seen them. I shouldn’t have cared about them being possible lost hikers.

Without a second thought to how this might end or working at another attempt to end this peacefully, I pulled the trigger on both guns, hitting both men simultaneously. However, because the blonde had seen it coming, he moved just in time for me to miss a shot to his head, and that had also given him enough time to pull out his own gun, then aim it my way.

Pain ripped through my chest as he hit his target, the revolver falling from my left hand, but that didn’t stop me from unloading an entire clip into the guy, my aim perfect this time. With him dead, I stumbled my way over to the other guy, then grabbed his gun from his waistband, using his own firearm to make sure that he was dead.

As soon as I was satisfied with the bullet holes in each body, I walked into the living room, making it only a few steps before leaning up against the wall, then sliding down, blood oozing from my wound, the lack of eating making me a bit woozy.

Now, while I didn’t think that the shot was life-threatening, I didn’t have a car, and I didn’t want to call an ambulance. I’d have to explain what happened here, and the last thing that I needed was for the police to discover the cellar. Plus, with the whole Cooper Donaldson thing going on, they also didn’t need to know that I knew how to shoot to kill.

I glanced over at the kitchen, wondering how I was going to get rid of the two bodies with a bullet stuck in my shoulder, but I also couldn’t help but wonder who in the hell Klive was. With these two dead, I couldn’t question them, so I had no idea if this was just a random act of burglary, if my cabin was targeted specifically, or if I just had bad fucking luck when it came to men.

Closing my eyes, I let out a shuttered breath, trying to push past the pain, wondering if these two had some friends waiting for them nearby. I had so many unanswered questions, and the only way to get any answers was going to be to find this Klive person and demand them.

Of course, that was only if I didn’t bleed out first.

Chapter 29

Declan~

Keavy’s been gone for over twelve hours, and I wasn’t handling it well. In fact, everyone was staying far away from me, and Noah was making sure that my brothers were handling any hiccups that might be happening. I wasn’t fit for polite company right now, and Noah knew it.

Twirling the empty glass tumbler in my hand, I wondered what Keavy was going to do when I finally found her. While I wanted to know why she fucking left, I was more interested in whether or not she was going to come back willingly. If not, then I was going to have one hell of a fight on my hands, and with as unpredictable as she was, it was anyone’s guess on who’d win.

My phone rang, snapping me out of my wayward thoughts, and when I saw that it was Nero, I answered faster than I’d ever done anything else in my life.

I was fucking losing it.

“This is O’Brien,” I answered.

“I have Morocco on speaker,” Nero said in lieu of a greeting.

“Okay, no problem.”

“Not sure where you encountered this ombra, but good luck,” Morocco muttered.

“What the hell is an ombra?”

Nero’s voice came on the line again. “It’s a ghost, a shadow, obscurity, and so forth.”

I just rolled my eyes at their dramatics. “What did you find out?”

“Just so you know, I practically had to dip my toes into Hell to get this information,” Morocco complained.

“Duly noted,” I drawled out.

“Her real name is Keavy Collins, but that’s the only thing real about her,” he said. “Her real parents, Oran and Sile Collins, died in a car accident when Keavy was only a few months old. The car was found on the Shurman Curve, and there’d been a baby seat in the back, but no baby.”

“No one looked for her?”

“Stop interrupting,” Morocco ordered petulantly. “The authorities looked for her until they had no choice but to conclude that she’d been dragged off by some wild animal and eaten.”

“Well, that’s…unfortunate.”

“Stop. Interrupting,” he repeated, and the guy sounded serious this time. “Now, since her father had been an electrician, and since her mother had been an insurance secretary, they hadn’t been important enough to keep going over budget for, so the search had ended, her parents had been put in the ground, and everyone had gone on with their lives.”

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