Page 88 of Three to Fall

She shook her head frantically, scooting back on the bed, clutching the covers to her chest.

Hayden’s voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t say anything. Just listen to your sister. We’re only trying to help.”

Jacqueline froze at Hayden’s command. Then dropped her head meekly.

I didn’t like it, but for once the meekness that had been trained into her might be of use. It would have been quicker to just get Hayden to toss her over his shoulder, but we couldn’t risk her screaming.

“You’re coming with us,” I whispered frantically, grabbing her jacket from the back of her desk chair and trying to put it on her. “We know all about what’s been happening here. The photos—”

Her head jerked up. Tears filled her eyes then overflowed. “He made me…I’m so embarrassed.”

I stopped and hugged her tight, even though I knew every second we stayed here was dangerous. But she was a child and, in that moment, she needed someone to say it was going to be okay. “You have no reason to be. You’re leaving with us and you’re never coming back. I have a home. A safe one. Far away from here, and I’ll take care of you.”

“We’lltake care of you,” Hayden corrected. “But you have to come with us. Now.” His lip curled as his gaze caught on the horrifying child-bride wedding dress. “Before Hawk comes up here and sees that and sends bullets flying all throughout the compound. I don’t think I can talk him off the ledge again.”

I wasn’t sure I could either.

Jacqueline tugged on her shoes, but that was all we let her bring. Everything else was left behind, an entire life she’d never see again.

And it couldn’t happen soon enough.

We moved down the stairs quicker and more carelessly than we had when we’d gone up them, but suddenly I couldn’t get away fast enough. I ran out the front door, Jacqueline behind me, Hayden protecting her from the rear. A light came on in my parents’ window, but by then we were already in the shadows, Grayson and Hawk falling in behind us, the five of us moving back toward the meeting place where Scythe and X waited with Shari between them.

I gawked at the gag in her mouth and her hands tied with duct tape behind her back.

I shot Scythe and X dirty looks. “What on earth did you tie her up for?”

X shrugged. “Women normally like when I do that.”

We all stared at him, but Scythe was the one who filled the rest of us in. He held a cloth to his face that was dark with what looked like blood. “She put up a fight. We had no choice.”

I stared at him. “She’s half your size!”

“Her claws are sharper than Hayden’s kittens, and I’m already ripped to shreds from those furballs, so excuse me if I made my life a bit easier with some duct tape. This was me being nice! Normally if someone scratched me like that, I would have carved my name in their skin with my knife—”

Hawk elbowed him. “Not helping your case here, bro.”

“They won’t hurt you,” I promised Shari, connecting my gaze to hers. “I want to take the tape off, but you have to promise me you aren’t going to scream.”

She nodded quickly, edging closer to me.

I ripped the duct tape from Shari’s hands, and she yanked the gag out of her mouth. She glared at X and Scythe. “If you’d just told me you were with Kara, I wouldn’t have fought you!”

X glanced at Scythe. “Didn’t we say that?”

Scythe paused. “Shit. I don’t think we did.”

X cringed. “Ooops, our bad. Complaints can be submitted to the head office—”

Gray suddenly stood a little straighter now we’d sorted out the drama. His head swiveled side to side. “Where’s Jacqueline?”

I spun around.

She’d been right behind me. But now suddenly, she wasn’t.

Panic speared through me. We’d all been focused on Shari and X and Scythe. Had none of us been watching her?

“There!” Shari pointed to the other side of the communal area.

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