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El kept pushing me along the side wall and I knew she was trying to make it around the group of my saviors and get toward the door. To hell with her men, I guess.
Paine pivoted with our motion, eyes following every step we took. I tried to convey a message with mine: I know this looks really bad, but I'm pretty sure she's not going to kill me.
As we closed in on the door, Elana jerked me hard, her arm crushing into my center and almost making me double over. If she wasn't holding me so tight, I would have. Her back was to the open space and she was walking both of us backward into it.
Until she collided into something that made me collide into her.
Unable to see anything, I looked to Paine's face for some kind of explanation. What I found there was uncertainty and surprise. Which, well, weren't exactly good things to see given the circumstances.
"I fucking dare you to move, bitch," a deep, smooth, threatening voice said. Whoever it was made my sister stiffen hard. Her hand holding the gun to my temple was shaking and I felt my stomach start to churn. If there was one thing you definitely didn't want, it was someone with a twitchy hand holding a gun to a part of you that would never survive a bullet wound.
"You won't shoot," Elana said in my ear, but she didn't sound as sure as I bet she wanted to. "You and your buddies aren't smart, but you aren't that stupid either. It'd be a suicide mission to open fire in a meth lab."
My eyes went again to the scene in front of me, everyone with guns raised, but no one who seemed all that willing to pull a trigger.
God.
I was an idiot.
Of course no one would shoot.
The reason there were task forces meant just for finding meth labs was because they were unstable. As in, they were known to blow up. All the time. Something as small as static electricity could send the already unstable materials a-blazing. Hell, meth lab explosions could decimate entire apartment complexes.
So, yeah, no one was going to shoot a gun, which was a small explosion itself, in a meth lab.
Everyone was at a standoff.
Except, apparently, whoever was behind my sister.
"Hey honey," he said, his voice still deep, but softer so I figured he was talking to me and not my sister. "Funny thing... know what is really hard to hold onto?" He asked, and I knew that whatever was to follow would be really important. "A completely limp body," he finished.
The second the words were out of his mouth and they registered, I let my legs buckle and the entire force of my weight pulled downward, making Elana's arm lose my middle and allowing me to slide completely to the floor.
I hit with an impact that shot into my stomach and I curled onto my side, sucking in a breath. I was vaguely aware of my sister yelping and I twisted my head over my shoulder to see her lifted off her feet and disappear out into the dark outside. But not before I got a look at the man who had saved me, who had threatened my sister, who had made Paine look both uncertain and surprised.
There was no mistaking it. It was in the matching caramel-colored skin tone. It was in the insane, chiseled bone structure. It was in the height and width of their strong bodies. And, lastly, it was in the identical shade to their eyes.
Enzo.
Paine's half brother.
The only real difference between them, other than their voices, was the fact that Enzo's face was swollen and bruised like he had taken a very recent, very brutal beating.
It didn't really take much for me to realize that my sister was the one who had, in some way, made that happen to him.
I turned back and Paine's eyes were on mine for a second and I saw the split feelings there: the need to come to me, and the need to handle his business.
I waved a hand at him, hoping he took it to mean 'do what you need to do, I'm fine'.
The next second, his gun was tucked away, and he was flying, positively flying across the room toward D. Full force, his body slammed into D's, sending them both spiraling into the table behind D. Their impact landed with a slam and grunt from D as Paine pushed up, swung an arm back, and started hitting.
I watched for all of ten seconds, seeing his fist collide with D's face at least three times in that span, making a spray of blood fly up and spatter across his shirt and face.
That was about all I could take.
The rest of the men seemed to reach an understanding at that point, all of them tucking their guns away and realizing that this was not their fight. Shooter and Sawyer turned back to me and both started to move in my direction.
