Page 75 of Hunted

25

AERIN

Istruggle to get to my feet as Helena leaps to hers.

Before I’m up, she nudges me back onto the couch and charges toward the entryway door. “Stay there, Aerin.”

“But I?—”

She slams the den door closed as I’m struggling to my feet for the second time when I hear a voice I never expected to hear again.

“I’m here for Aerin. Andyouare going to get her for me.”

Shane.

He was supposed to be back in Minnesota, fighting to control the Dacres. What the hell is he doing here?

For a second, I freeze, stunned. Then I shove myself upright, rush over to the closed door and pull.

It doesn’t move.

“Helena! Open the door!” I yell.

“No!” she yells back. “Whatever you want with her, you can’t have her,” she says, presumably speaking to Shane.

“Helena, let me?—”

A woman cries out, and my heart tightens in response. “Grandma!”

What the hell is he doing to my grandma?

“This is the nice clean way,” Shane says calmly. “You can continue to block that door and keep Aerin from me and I promise you won’t like what I do next.”

“Open the door Helena!” I yell, rattling the handle.

She must be holding it closed because it shouldn’t be this hard to open it.

“Let her go,” Helena orders.

“Light it.” Shane suddenly calls out.

Those two words terrify me.

“Don’t light anything! I’m coming out,” I scream.

“Wait,” Shane calls out, and I hope, I really fucking hope, that he doesn’t have someone out there ready to set this house on fire.

“Open the door Helena!” I yell. “I know what you’re trying to do, but this is not the way.”

When I rattle the door, it gives way, swinging open so suddenly that I nearly hit myself in the face.

I rush out into the hallway, and Helena grips my arm, halting me before I can take more than three steps.

The den doorway is closer to the front door. Toward the back of the house is the kitchen and next to the kitchen is the door to the backyard.

Standing in the entryway near the kitchen is Shane, gripping my grandma’s shoulder.

Behind him, in the kitchen, my grandpa is on his back, and Adela is crouched beside him, as if she helped him sit up, but told him not to move anymore. The table is on its side, tea spreading over the floor, and the remnants of shattered mugs are everywhere.

---