Page 19 of Unholy Night
"The Santoses will come here," I say, forcing myself to focus on the immediate threat. "They'll want blood. Mine, specifically, since everyone believes I pulled the trigger."
"But you didn't."
"Doesn't matter. In my world, the story everyone believes becomes the truth."
She starts humming nervous, unconscious notes. "Little Drummer Boy" threading between us like it could somehow make this holy again. But there's nothing holy about what's coming. Nothing holy about what I'll have to do to protect her.
"When they come…"
The first gunshot from outside the cabin cuts me off mid-sentence.
Glass explodes from the kitchen window. I'm already moving, tackling Natalie to the floor, covering her body with mine as two more shots punch through the wall above us.
Three shooters, standard Santos formation. They're here already. Leo's warning barely gave us time.
"Stay down," I growl against her ear, then I'm rolling, gun in hand, muscle memory taking over.
Another window shatters. Living room this time. More gunshots outside the cabin, circling, looking for angles. Threeshooters from the sound pattern. I note it automatically while pulling Natalie behind the couch, the heavy oak frame providing decent cover.
"Don't move," I order, already heading for the door.
She grabs my wrist. "You're going out there?"
"It's what I do."
Her eyes are wide, terrified, but there's something else there too. She's seeing me clearly for the first time. Not the man who quotes philosophy or does crosswords. The killer. The weapon.
I kiss her once, hard and fast. "Don't move."
Then I'm gone, slipping out the back door into the snow-covered darkness.
The chill hits like a slap, but I barely feel it. Snow crunches under my boots, each step calculated to avoid the iced-over patches that would give me away. My world narrows to footprints in snow, disturbed branches, the glint of metal twenty yards out.
The first scout is crouched behind my woodpile, focused on the cabin. He doesn't hear me until my arm is around his throat, cutting off his scream. The snap is quick, efficient. His last breath fogs in the cold, then nothing. His body drops silent into the snow.
Movement to my left. The second scout turning, rifle swinging toward me. I'm already firing, two shots center mass. He goes down with a wet gasp, blood spreading dark across white snow. Blood on snow looks like festive tinsel and Christmas morning gone wrong.
The third scout opens fire from the tree line, bullets chewing up the ground near my feet. I dive, roll, come up shooting. My first shot takes him in the shoulder, spinning him. The second puts him down permanently.
Silence.
Just wind through pines and my harsh breathing misting in the freeze. Three scouts dead in the snow. Blood already freezing into dark crystals.
I do a careful sweep, checking for others, but these three were alone. Scouts. The vanguard. More will come when these don't report back.
When I return to the cabin, Natalie is exactly where I left her, curled behind the couch. But her eyes track me differently now. She looks at my hands—steady, unmarked except for blood. Then at the bodies in the snow. Then back at my hands. She doesn't step back.
"Three scouts," I tell her, already moving to barricade the broken window. "Just the advance team."
"How long before the rest?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. They'll wait for their scouts to report." I check my ammunition—two clips left. "When they don't…"
"How many will come?"
"All of them." I pull the rifle from the wall mount, check the scope. "The Santos don't do things halfway. But for now it’s clear," I say, voice steady despite the adrenaline still burning through my veins.
She stands slowly, gaze moving from my face to my hands: steady, unmarked except for a smear of blood from the first scout. "You killed them."
