Page 152 of The Piece You Stole

Shaking my head, I turn back to the attic door. I can’t hear what’s going on down there, even though someone, Kade or Dariel, has switched off the piercing alarm. Or maybe it wasn’t them at all. But just because I can’t hear anything, doesn’t mean something bad isn’t happening. “I’m not cold.”

In our old house, the attic was always stinking hot. This one is no different. I know, if we survive Rylan, and we’re still up here in an hour from now, we’re both going to be swimming in our sweat, if not stripping out of our sweatpants and t-shirts in an attempt to cool ourselves down.

But it makes sense why they would bring me up here. One narrow door. No windows except a boarded up one at the far back wall. And weapons…plenty and plenty of weapons between us and Rylan.

My gaze returns to the table. “Why do you have so many guns?” I ask, staring at a black, heavy machine gun that looks like it would cut a wolf in two.

Must be why they bought it.

God, a gun like that looks like it belongs in a soldier’s hands fighting a war, not in Aden’s hands.

“I like to shoot.” He tugs me toward him, dips his head, and kisses me lightly on the lips.

I wrap my arms around his hips and try not to think about what could be happening downstairs. “They’re outnumbered, Aden,” I whisper, my eyes burning. “We need to—”

“They will be fine. Dariel is Dariel. And Kade?” He flashes me a quick grin. “Well, when you see Kade fight, you’ll know there’s nothing to worry about. He’ll be okay.”

“And if they’re not?”

He frames my face with both hands, his hazel eyes determined. “They’ll be okay.”

But then why do I have the same churn in my belly I had when Dad told me that last day it was time to see Mom and I had to be brave?

“Why are we here, Aden?” I whisper.

The silence stretches out for so long that I don’t think he’s going to answer.

He gives me a long, searching look before releasing me to walk around the table. After returning the black hoodie to one corner, he picks up a gun. Not the terrifying black machine gun, but another. This one is silver, very shiny, with a black, rubbery-looking grip. “Rylan is here to take you back.” He lifts the gun, turns it on its side, and after sliding the top back toward him, peeks at something I can’t see, and returns the weapon to the table. “None of us are going to let that happen.”

It feels like a lifetime ago an attractive blond man saved me from pimps who had chased me into a grocery store. He took me to the place he worked, a bar called the Cerberus, where one of the regulars had given the owners a nickname: the hounds, named after the three-headed beast who guarded the underworld.

Those owners were Aden, Dariel, and Kade. As I stand in front of a black table, laid out with more guns than I’ve ever seen in my life, I understand what the hounds' goal is and why they wouldn’t tell me their plan.

These hounds aren’t guarding any doors.

They’re guarding me.

“And if they get up here?” My eyes track Aden as he picks up a black handgun. He repeats the same, gun to the side, sliding the top back and peeking action he did before returning it to the table and moving to the next.

The dull silver weapon with a black grip looks small in his tanned hand. Other than the machine gun, it’s the only one I know the name of: a revolver, and only because of the old cowboy movies Dad would sometimes watch.

Aden pushes out the silver protruding cylinder on the side and peers into it. That’s when I understand what he’s doing—or been doing—all this time. Checking there’s a bullet in each chamber. If anyone comes through that door, he won’t have to load or reload, just pick up a gun and fire.

Swallowing hard, suddenly, things feel a lot more real than they did five seconds ago.

Aden snaps the chamber back in place, returns the gun to the table, and turns to me. “Dariel and Kade know what they’re doing down there. I know what I’m doing up here.” He doesn’t pick up another gun. “This attic runs the length of the house. All that’s up here is dust and insulation, which means there are plenty of places to hide you. We have—”

“No.”

He blows out a heavy sigh, “Saige, we’re doing this—”

“I am not hiding in the insulation, Aden. So, no.” They must know they don’t have a chance here, not against a pack of nearly twenty, yet somehow, they’ve decided I’m worth dying for. “I’m not letting them die for me.”

“I can’t let you go down there, Saige,” he says gently.

“So, we’ll go together.”

“No, we stay up here.”

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