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But all I saw was what looked like a little incident of road rage, two men out of their cars screaming at each other.
Not that it was nothing.
Lo's guys were trained to see anything as a potential for invasion. Which was likely why their hands were gripping their guns harder than they usually did all night.
I was about to go sit back down when I felt it.
The hairs rising on the back of my neck.
It had been a long ass time since I felt it, but there was no mistaking it when it happened.
And from whatever mystical place that feeling arose, something else did as well.
A bone-deep certainty that the sensation had nothing to do with the cars fighting in the street.
Heart starting to pound, pulse points in my throat, temples, wrists engaging, I moved closer to the window, knowing that with DARPA glass, nothing - save for maybe a missile or tank - could penetrate the safety of my box. My eyes scanned the inky blackness all around, trying to tell a threat from any possible tree branch dancing along with the late spring breeze.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
Even as the hairs on my arms rose, as a chill washed over me.
I took a burning breath, trying to calm the nerves, let myself think more clearly.
My eyes scanned again.
And there it was.
A metallic flash as moonlight met it.
Turning, I grabbed my cell, and a gun, throwing open the latch, sliding down the side of the ladder, then dialing, calling Reign.
"Trouble," I barked as soon as I heard his voice, then tossed the phone as I rushed through the basement, up the stairs, through the clubhouse, breaking into the backyard likely before Reign could even take a full breath.
Because that glare?
It was inside the gate.
An impossible feat, Lo and her team had assured us. There was barbed wire on top. Electrified. There were goddamn ditches deep enough to make scaling them even if you got the electric shut off impossible.
But life had shown me many times before that there was no such thing as impossible.
Just unlikely.
Just the usual enemy not motivated enough to try so hard.
So if there was someone in the gates, they'd tried really fucking hard.
And that, well, was an enemy not to underestimate.
I was just sucking in a breath to call to Lo's guys when I heard it.
You only had to hear it once in life to know it.
A gun cocking.
Right fucking behind my right ear.
Close.
But not close enough.
Not so close that I could turn, grab it, disarm him.
But close enough to make an open casket a complete impossibility.
Maybe I should have panicked.
Normal people panicked in the face of death.
But, I found, the more you faced it, the less the adrenaline rushed through your system when it showed its face again.
Not many people got to choose their death. It was a universally unpredictable mistress, coming for you when you least expected it.
You never got a choice of when or how.
But you did get a choice to beg for mercy or not, to close your eyes and pray for it to be fast, or to turn, face it, welcome it with a chin raised.
If I was going to die, I was going to look my killer in the eye.
Taking a slow breath, I turned on my heel, a motion that seemed to slow down enough for me to take in all my lasts. The breeze kicking up the ends of my hair, the sounds of leaves rustling, the smell of lilacs and onion grass on the breeze.
There were worse final moments to have, I decided as I finally became face-to-face with the gun.
The first thought that hit me was that there was no silencer. This would be loud, flashy, draw Lo's guys, have the neighbors calling the cops.
So it wasn't an invasion.
This was targeted.
They were going to start picking us off.
Fuck.
And I had called Reign.
It seemed like my thoughts were sluggish, wading through molasses, like it took ages to move from one to another.
But the reality was, barely a blink passed between turning and realizing how good and fucked we all were.
And after taking in the gun, my gaze focused, following the hand holding it, smaller than I would have expected, as was the arm following it. Strong, but almost petite.
It wasn't until I took the whole body in that I realized it wasn't that the man was small.
It was that it wasn't a man at all.
It was a woman.
Which, well, wasn't that much of a surprise anymore. The times had changed. And as jobs such as military and espionage became more equal-opportunity, so did the criminal underbelly.
Women, in my experience, were even more ruthless than the men I had ever come across.
The body was neither tall nor short - somewhere around five-five - and athletic, the arm muscles outlined, but not bulging, the waist small, but strong, the thighs - held in a somewhat wide, confident stance - had muscles you could bounce a ball off of, but somehow still shapely, feminine, as were the hips, the outline of breasts under a simple, deep green tank top.
