Page 147 of Crucible

I slam the door just as Jonah shouts, “Hey, she’s stealing your van!”

The first bass solo in the song drowns out the rest of their shouts as I wrap my hand around the key and turn it. The van rumbles to life, but I don’t get a chance to throw it into drive.

My dumb ass forgot to lock the door first.

It’s yanked back open with an angry screech of metal, and Sam grabs me by my hair, dragging me right back out and throwing me on the frozen ground.

“And by the way, your music sucks!” he spews. “My girlfriend likes Tania better anyway.”

That fucking does it.

Forgetting that I’m the one in the wrong here, I lift my leg and drive my foot into his kneecap. Sam howls in pain as he bends over to grab his smarting knee just as an arrow flies over his head where his face was not a second ago.

At first, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It happened too fast to be sure, but there’s no mistaking the familiar green arrow embedded in the side of the blue van.

Hearing the thunk and following my gaze, Sam forgets all about his knee when he looks over his shoulder and sees the arrow lodged into the side of his van. “What the hell? My van!”

“Shit,” the curse falls from my lips in a stunned whisper, and then I snap out of it, yelling, Run!”

Flipping over, I try to scramble to my feet, but I’m tackled to the ground by Jonah. It knocks the wind out of me long enough for him to turn my onto my back again, grab my wrists, and pin me down.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“They’re here!” I scream inexplicably as I wrestle to get from under him. “We need to leave!”

Jonah blinks at me through his glasses like I’m crazy, and then he sneers. “Nice try, thief. There’s no one out here but us.”

“Get off me!” When all he does is nudge my thighs apart and wedge himself between them, I scream. It’s not until Jonah attempts to stuff a meaty paw down my tights, and I scream again, that I realize why I’m screaming or, rather,whoI’m screaming for.

My mountain men.

“Yeah, you’re not going anywhere, princess. You—”

I hear the familiar whistling sound of another arrow cleaving the air and then a wet, sickening crunch as it finds its target this time.

My struggles stop as I stare up at Jonah in horror.

His grip on my wrists loosens, and then his astonished gaze lowers. He tries to speak when he sees the bright green arrow piercing his chest and the red bloom slowly spreading, but only a hoarse, hollow gasp escapes.

“Hey, Jonah,” Ronnie calls out. “You all right, man?”

Only a gurgling sound answers back, and then Jonah’s eyes roll back before he collapses.

“Oh, shit!”

I push their friend off me while Pete and Ronnie panic. Sam is the only one whose shock won’t let him make a sound. He’s also the only one standing between me and freedom.

This time, I don’t hesitate.

I make the cold and calculated move of trying to push past him for the van, and just as I predicted, he reacts and backhands me hard enough that I go flying.

By the time I blink the stars away and look up, Sam’s clutching his bleeding throat. This time, the arrow sticking out of his neck is yellow from the compound bow.Mybow. Our gazeslock as he chokes on his own blood, and then he falls to his knees first before faceplanting in the snow. I cringe when the arrow is shoved deeper from the impact and punches through the back of his neck with another sickening crunch. Shaking it off, I step over Sam’s body to get to van now that he’s no longer in my way.

I can feel bad about what I’ve done later.

“Yo, what the fuck!” Ronnie screams as I climb into the front seat.

“Sam!” Pete cries in vain. His friend doesn’t answer. Sam’s eyes are still open but unseeing as his crimson blood stains the snow red. “I think…I think he’s dead!”

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