AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I don't know how the fuck she managed to get out, let alone so fucking quick. It doesn't matter. Why?
Because as soon as she locks eyes with me, she snarls and starts barking orders.
"Get the girl! Grab Emily!"
One of the guys follows the order; the other sticks with Holly. He's got his hand on his hip and in Texas, that's universal code for square up.
"Holly!" I roar, my feet carrying me toward her before my brain can even register what they're doing. They’ve got a one-track mind of their own and a single purpose.
Save Olivia.
The unfortunate thing about running on Neanderthal brain, though, is that you get tunnel vision. I see Holly. Everything else around her is a black void that might as well not exist to me.
More specifically, I see what Holly is holding in her hand. A gun. And since she's not pointing that shit at me, I know she's only got one other target in mind.
I go to leap for her. To throw myself between Olivia and that gun.
But I'm too late.
One of the heavy bastards with Holly barrels into me like a fucking semi-truck. I'm sent flying into the ground, crashing with an uncomfortable grunt. Everything hurts. Stitches pop and the hot rush of blood waterfalls down my leg from the stab wound.
"HEY! GET THE FUCK OFF HIM!"
I swing wildly at anything that happens to get in the way of my fists. Grunting, panting, spit flying everywhere like this is some serious, primordial battle and I'm the god trying to come out on top.
And I'm not alone.
Marcus and Dante descend on the guy, too. Curses and blood fly in every direction. But I’m still locked in on Holly—as everything slows to a crawl.
The next few moments unfold like a slideshow of freeze frames.
A little girl, splayed and terrified on the door stoop.
Holly, gun up, pointing inside.
Pointing to someone. Pointing to her. My Olivia.
Muzzle flare. Two shots ringing out. A high-pitched echo in the Texas wild.
Then, suddenly, everything gets fast. Holly drops to her knees and the little girl screams as she presses her hands to her head, covering her ears and shaking her head in a frantic blond flurry. "No, no, no, no!" she cries, her tears streaming heavy down her face, hiccups interrupting her breaths.
And then there's Olivia.
And a ringing in my ears.
And a pool of blood.
So… much… blood.
It's not Holly's because Holly's is spilling from the hole in her back, dead center over her spine. It's not the little girl's because somehow in the crossfire of two guns, the little thing wasn't hit, not once.
No—the blood seeps from a gaping wound in the middle of Olivia's stomach. She clutches herself there, fingers glistening in blood over the hole in the dress she's still wearing from the night I was going to propose to her. The night she should have become my future wife.
I’m moving again before I know it. One foot in front of the other. And then again. Until I'm running past Holly, past the little girl, right to Olivia. I scoop her up, hold her tight, as if my grip is going to keep her and our baby together.
A man—another one of Holly’s soldiers, I presume—comes from deeper inside the house, halting when he sees the scene. The gun he'd had drawn lowers when he sees Olivia.
"Oh… shit…"
