Page 153 of The Piece You Stole

“And if I decide to go down there anyway?” I ask.

“Then I would go with you,” Aden says, his voice as low as mine, “and we would both die.”

My heart lurches. “You can’t know that.”

He gazes steadily at me. “I know we don’t have the benefit of claws and teeth to fight back.” My eyes go to the guns as if to remind him we would have a different weapon, but still deadly. “And I also know that sometimes you can shoot a wolf and still miss. We stay here, Saige, and we watch that door.”

I move. Not toward the back of the attic, but around the table and beside Aden, so we’re both facing the door. I hold my hand out, palm side up. “Give me a gun.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Have you fired a weapon before?”

“Point and shoot. What could be easier than that?”

He studies me for a long moment, sighs in a way that can only mean he’s getting ready to say no, and turns back to the table before picking up the machine gun.

It does not, to my surprise, look ridiculous in Aden’s hands. It doesn’t look bulky or odd. He holds it like he knows exactly what he’s doing with it. As if it isn’t the first, third, or even the fiftieth time he’s picked the thing up. He said he liked to shoot, but seeing him with this war gun in his hands, I believe it.

“Aim andsqueeze,” he murmurs, as he peers through the scope on top.

I wait, hand out, for him to put a gun in it. Not the machine gun. I doubt I’d be able to hold the thing for a minute before the weight dragged my arms down to my side. My left arm twinges at the thought of holding it for longer than two seconds. “Same thing.”

He lowers the bulky weapon to the table and turns to stare at me. The seconds tick by, and in that silence, glass smashes downstairs and a hard thump rattles the door.

More glass smashes, and something else thumps hard below us.Farbelow us.

Aden and Dariel could be dying down there. For me.Becauseof me.

My eyes burn, and my right hand trembles, but I don’t lower it. I just wait.

He looks away.

He’s going to say no, and I can’t let him. Glowering hard so he knows I’m not backing down, I take a step toward him. “Aden, I’m not—”

“I learned to shoot with a Glock 19 just like this one,” Aden says as he picks up one of the smaller black handguns. “Dariel bought me this when he asked me which one I would want to defend myself with. It’s light, reliable, and has little to no recoil. There are better guns out there. Some, like my shotgun over there or that machine gun, will take down a black bear.Thiswon’t. But it will never let you down, and if you put a bullet in the right place, it will put most things down and keep them down.”

He glances at me as if to gauge my response.

“What about Rylan’s head?” I ask, my voice steady. “Because I’d like to put a bullet right there. Will it keep him down?”

Silence.

His crack of laughter surprises me so badly, I jump.

Shaking his head, he flips the gun before placing it in my hands. I’m guessing, in the way I’m supposed to hold it. “Bloodthirsty,” he murmurs, with just enough amusement in his voice that I know he’s still smiling.

I study his bent head as he manipulates my fingers. “Like Kade?”

He shakes his head. “I think there’s a little of all of us in you, Saige.”

“How am I like you?” I don’t see how I could be. Aden is kind, he listens, and he comforts me like no one else ever has. Hecares. I feel that caring in the same way I have since I first met him.

“You care,” he says, lifting his head to study me, as if he read my mind.

Snorting, I shake my head. “If that was true, I wouldn’t have dragged you into this mess, so I wouldn’t exactly call that caring.”

“You didn’t drag us into anything, Saige. You were in trouble, and we chose to help you.”

That won’t make a difference if you die because of me.

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