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“We need to go.”
“Goddamn it, I said shut up!”
“—what the fuck did you do?”
“Let’s go!”
Footsteps could be heard pounding down the hall seconds before my door was flung open. The light to my room was turned on, revealing Aric and the three men in my room.
They were in dark jeans and jackets. Their hoods were drawn over their heads and held in place by dark bandanas that covered their chins to just below their eyes. The two standing near the foot of my bed immediately began yelling what sounded like accusations at my brother, but Aric didn’t seem to be hearing them.
He didn’t seem to notice them at all.
A flurry of emotions passed over his face: shock, worry, hesitation, and fear . . . but as his eyes narrowed on the man standing above me, fury replaced all the rest.
I screamed for him against the large hand covering my mouth, but I didn’t know what I was screaming.
Screaming for him to run and get help.
Screaming for him to save me.
Just screaming.
“I said shut up,” the man repeated again, his growl splitting over the shouts in the room.
The hand covering my mouth left briefly, but then connected with my face hard. The force made me bite my cheek and stunned me for long seconds as the metallic taste of blood met my tongue.
My brother tore into the room, shouting for me and shouting at the men, not even stopping when the man closest to him calmly pulled out a gun from the back of his dark jeans.
But he didn’t point it at Aric or at me; it just remained at his side in warning.
My world tilted as a high-pitched ringing filled my ears.
A stain spread rapidly on Aric’s shirt as he finally stumbled to a stop. It was blood red. And it didn’t make sense, and someone was screaming, and they needed to stop.
They needed to help Aric.
Something was wrong with him, but there was so much screaming, confusing my already flooded senses as my world continued to tilt. And Aric was staring blankly at me as I was ripped off my bed by the man who had hit me—a gun in his free hand, raised in Aric’s direction.
Why wasn’t anyone helping him?
The screaming finally stopped, but someone was holding me back—pulling me away. Away from Aric and the safety of the house, toward the large windows. That rough hand was back over my mouth, the arm it was attached to completely oblivious to my clawing at it.
A wet choking noise sounded in the room, and I fought harder—except, I wasn’t sure my arms worked anymore.
Aric.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t get to him, and I needed to get to him. He was going to fall!
Aric’s lips moved one last time, but I couldn’t decipher his words as my world darkened.
His knees hit my floor, and suddenly a pair of familiar green eyes were directly in front of my own. Rage and something so terrifying filling them as they locked on the man dragging me away.
Kieran.
Relief slammed into me as darkness wrapped its arms around me like an old friend and pulled me close . . .
