Page 163 of Fire Fight
“I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to use this,” she said, tone almost resigned. “Shooting people is so…messy and personal.” With her other hand, she produced a lighter. “I much prefer the snap and crackle of flames, which I can enjoy from afar. But unfortunately, desperate times and all that. So here’s what’s going to happen. You two are going to stand at that wall.” She gestured to the one farthest away from the door. “If you move before I’m outside, I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
Mentally, I weighed my options. I’d had no time to check if there was something upstairs I could use to leverage the windows or door open. At the very least, I could probably smash the windows out with the coffee table or microwave, right?
It came down to a simple question: did I like my chances better against a bullet or a fire?
The answer was simple. I walked into fire every day.
When I didn’t speak or move, Parker came to my side, and I shifted him slightly behind me so I could shield him with my body if need be.
Then Mrs. Saunders grinned. “It’s a shame Miss McKay couldn’t join us. She’ll forever be the one that got away, but I suppose as her lover, the pain she’ll suffer over your loss will have to do.”
This woman was absolutely sick in the head, completely deluded into thinking what she was doing was right. Allbecause some guy scorned her at a meaningless high school dance? Seriously, I was sitting here right now, listening to this fucking psychobabble because a boneheaded teenage guy who was only capable of thinking with his dick had ditched her at her prom.
I couldn’t have made that shit up if I tried.
And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
Anger made people do stupid shit. There was a whole television series about what people did when they snapped.
My and Parker’s best chance was to take her out before she could light this place up. Eventually, my brothers would find us.
As though I’d conjured them, a voice carried to us from outside. Deep and distinctly belonging to Trey.
“Crew, take cover!”
My body understood the words far sooner than my mind did, and I jumped on Parker and rolled us both, hiding behind the sofa as the window we’d been standing in front of shattered, followed by the rest in the cabin. A moment later, severalbangs echoed through the room, accompanied by flashes of light and clouds of smoke.
I did my best to cover my face, shielding my eyes with my forearm and tugging my shirt over my nose and mouth. At my side, Parker choked and coughed.
A beat later, I heard the telltale sound of the entrance being breached, the door slamming back into the wall, and the room filled with shouting voices—my brothers.
Before I could react or stumble toward those voices I knew meant safety, I was hauled upright, though I remained on my knees, that goddamn gun once again pressed into my skull. Parker stared up at me with wide, panicked eyes, though he wisely scrambled away from us. Finn grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him to feet, then shoved him in the direction. With a final glance in my direction, Parker stumbled out into the night.
He would live, and the realization relaxed my shoulders a fraction.
But there was still the matter of the fucking gun being held against my head and this cabin being doused in gasoline.
“Let him go, Kelly,” Lane warned.
“Stay back or I’ll bury a bullet in his brain,” Mrs. Saunders seethed from behind me, her voice hoarse, and she coughed to clear it.
My eyes watered heavily from the smoke bombs, blurring my vision, but I could tell we were surrounded. Not just by my brothers, but likely the entire sheriff’s department. She wasn’t getting out of this unscathed. It remained to be seen whether I would or not.
I needed to do something to help my chances, but once again, my damn mouth ran away with me.
“Little too up close and personal for you, don’t you think?”
I spoke loud enough to be heard over the commotion, and the barrel dug harder against my head before it disappeared entirely. By the time I turned to face her, Mrs. Saunders—Kelly,I reminded myself; she was going to try to kill me either way—was in the kitchen, standing at the stove.
Cranking the knobs on the burners all the way up.
“Fuck,” I breathed, glancing over my shoulder, eyeing each of my brothers, who now stood spread around the small space, in turn. “It’s gonna blow. Bail out!”
“Not without you!” West protested.
“I’ll be right behind you! Just go!”
“How sweet,” Kelly mocked. “Always gotta be the hero, protecting your brothers from suffering the same fate as you. But what about all the times you weren’t a hero, Crew? What about those years you lost to drugs and alcohol? Don’t you think you’d be doing your family a favor if you died right here? Personally, I do. It’s honestly a shame the drugs didn’t take you those years ago.”
