Page 76 of Double Bucked

“Goddammit, Claire! Quite being stubborn for once in your life!”

“I hate you!” I shout at him.

He chokes out a laugh. When Ransom looks at me, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that we’re surrounded by gunmen. It doesn’t matter that our lives are hanging on by a thread.

When Ransom looks at me, it’s like I’m the only person in the world.

“I hate you, too,” he says affectionately.

The words fill my chest and make it so tight I can’t hardly breathe.

There’s a click as Black Hat pulls back the safety on his gun. Suddenly, I’m screaming. I scream and claw and struggle. I scream for Ransom. I scream for help. I scream for him to get the fuck up because we sure as hell aren’t going down like this.

But he won’t move. He won’t budge. Black Hat presses the barrel to his forehead, and Ransom just closes his eyes, grits his teeth, and his lips move as he murmurs something quietly under his breath.

And then the gun goes off.

Or, rather, a gun goes off. Because Black Hat’s head suddenly jerks back unnaturally. His hat tumbles off his head, and a small, black spot grows between his unseeing eyes.

He’s dead before he hits the ground. His corpse collapses with a soft thump.

My breath shudders.

Even my assailant gasps. “What the?—?”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence, though, before another buzz rips through the air. His head jerks back, and he loosens his grip on me as death takes him, too, pulling him down to the ground.

I scramble out from underneath his limp body and run forward. “Ransom!”

He gets off his knees. He’s wonderfully, beautifully still in one piece, and I find my hands touching his chest, his face, to make sure he’s really alive. “Ransom…”

He grabs my shoulders, holding me close. His eyes aren’t on me, however. They’re scanning around, hunting.

We’re still outnumbered. The two other men surround us, but they suddenly seem less interested in us and more interested in the mysterious gunman no one can see.

That’s when they start firing.

At the corn. At anything that moves.

Ransom wraps me tightly in his arms, shielding me with his body.

It’s hard to understand exactly what I’m seeing.

One of the gunmen screams as he’s yanked back into the maze. The stalks themselves seem to swallow him whole, and suddenly, the screaming stops.

Now, there’s only one man standing.

He looks at us, and I see the same fear in my heart reflected in his eyes.

Now’s our chance.

Black Hat’s gun lies only a couple of feet away from us.

I push away from Ransom and grab the gun from the ground. I lift it, pointing it at the man.

My hands are shaking, but my voice is hard. “Go,” I demand. “Leave. Now.”

But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he turns his head back and forth like a spooked horse. “Who the hell is out there?” he shouts.

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