Page 79 of Little Bird
“Shit,” he mutters. I hear something crash in the background and his breathing turns heavier. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Try not to kill anyone.”
I almost laugh, because I’m not the kind of girl who kills anyone.
Even when he’s nearly breathing down my neck, now, and I can smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes. Every hair on my body is standing up with the need to run, and my instincts are screaming at me that I’m fucking stupid for being here on my own and without a gun in my pocket.
God, I hope it takes Gabe less than the ten minutes he said. Because now that this guy is right behind me, I’m realizing that he’s a lot bigger than I thought he was.
And I’ve just walked into a hallway without an exit at the end of it.
Gabe
By the time I squeal into the parking lot attached to the bar, I’ve decided I’m going to have to kill Taryn.
Well, save her first.
Kill her after.
Because she’s not supposed to be coming into town on her own. Hell, she’s not supposed to go out after dark on her own! And she damn well isn’t allowed to steal one of my bikes and ride away on it without fucking telling anyone.
I jerk the truck to a stop and jump out almost before the engine is turned off, my eyes on the bar. It’s not a bad place, really, and I know the owners and bartenders here. They’re decent people. They don’t even allow bad patrons. But the fact that Taryn is in here on her own and evidently in some sort of trouble has my blood so hot it feels like I’m being scalded from the inside.
Which is what I get for taking my eyes off her for two fucking seconds.
I came back from the ridge high on her love, though, and floating around like a fucking lovesick puppy at what we’d just done. I’ve been waiting years to be allowed to touch her like that, and the fact that she finally let me, and then actually opened up for me, had me seeing stars. Literally. I went upstairs to my room, just to spend a minute trying to process what had happened, and the next thing I know I’m getting a phone call from the girl in question saying she’s in trouble.
And then it took me far too long to get here. It’s been seven minutes since she called and I’m going out of my mind with worry about what may have happened to her while I was navigating the still-snowy roads.
I rush toward the bar, hands flexed into fists and suddenly wondering why the hell I didn’t bring an axe with me—and whether I have one in the truck—but decide it’s too late for that. I’ll just have to use fists for whatever I find inside. God, I hope it’s just that she got a drink and realized she forgot to bring any money with her.
Or maybe she forgot her phone.
No, strike that. She called me on her phone.
The money, then. Maybe it’s just money.
I burst through the doors like I’m about to evacuate the place from a fire, knowing that I probably look both insane and possessed, which are maybe the same thing, and not giving a single fuck. My girl is in here, and she’s not only out after dark—which isn’t allowed—but in some sort of trouble.
“Taryn!” I shout, before even taking the time to look around.
Everyone in the bar jumps like I just shot a gun.
Shit. I’m never going to hear the end of this.
I look quickly through the room but there’s nothing to see out here. Benny is behind the bar cleaning up, a rag in one hand and a bottle in the other, and several people are sitting at tables with drinks in their hands. No one looks dangerous. They just look sad.
And Taryn isn’t here.
A sudden shriek from the back hallway has us all whirling in that direction, though, and I’m moving before anyone else so much as stands up. Because I know that voice. I’d know it anywhere, even if I was in a fucking coma.
Little Bird. She’s in the back hallway, and she’s struggling with someone. The closer I get, the better I can hear it; crashing and banging and her cussing like it’s the only language she knows. She screams again, and it pushes me to a run, because this definitely isn’t an I-forgot-money sort of situation.
I skid around the corner so hard I bang into the wall on the other side and shoot toward the noises. Within seconds I can see through the dim lighting back here to make out what’s going on. Taryn is pinned against the wall at the end of the hallway, her hands wrapped around the neck of the much larger man who is evidently attacking her. He has his hands on her shoulders and is pushing at her, trying to get close enough to kiss her, but she’s doing one hell of a job keeping him at a distance. As I watch, she jerks one knee up and does a very creditable job of trying to knee him in the balls.
I mean she misses, and it just pisses him off. But it was a strong attempt.
He rears back, furious, and actually lifts a hand like he’s going to slap her, but I get there first. I grab the hand he’s lifted and jerk it back, hearing a very satisfying crunch when something in his arm either disconnects or breaks. I grab his other shoulder and jerk that, too, sending him straight to the floor. Then I aim a couple of kicks right at his face, connecting twice before I adjust to kicking him in the stomach. I don’t pause, and I don’t hold back. He was attacking my girl. My girl. The one I just got back, and the one who’s wrapped her hands around my heart and made me feel something again for the first time in years. Yeah, I’m angry at her for being in this place on her own and not telling me she left, but that doesn’t give this asshole any right to try to attack her.
I’ll kill him, and I don’t even care what that means for my future.
