Heavy boots hit the porch moments later.
“We have to go out the back,” I whisper frantically, shoving my arms through the straps of my backpack. “We can make it to the barn. We can hide.”
“If we go out the back door, we’re entirely exposed. We have no idea where his line of sight is right now,” Noah whispers fiercely, stepping in front of me and pushing me behind his broad shoulders.
I back up until my spine hits the bedroom wall, my hand flying up to cover my mouth.We’re trapped.We are trapped inside a house with a man who keeps handcuffs and horrific pictures of young boys locked in a desk drawer across the hall.
The jingle of keys echoes through the thin walls of the farmhouse.
A key slides into the front door lock. It turns with a heavy, metallicclick.
“Get in the closet,” Noah orders, his voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly hush. He doesn’t look at me. His pale blue eyes are locked dead on the bedroom door, his good hand curling into a massive, white-knuckled fist. “Now, Rue.”
I slip into the cramped space of the closet, pulling the louvered door nearly shut, leaving just a sliver to see out of.
The front door groans open.
“Buster, stay out there,” Bill’s gruff voice echoes from the living room.
But the dog’s footsteps blow through the house.Oh shit. Oh shit!
The front door shuts. Heavy boots step onto the hardwood floor of the hallway. He’s walking toward the kitchen. Toward us.
“Noah,” I whisper. “You have to hide.”
But Noah doesn’t hear me, and if he does, he doesn’t listen. He stands perfectly still in the shadows just beside the open bedroom door frame, his body coiled tight as a spring, waiting for the monster to step into the hall.
What the fuck is he about to do?
43
NOAH
Every ounceof hate I’ve ever felt funnels to my chest, pounding in a lethal succession. I wanted to be a good man. I really did.
But her dog is dead. My face is plastered all over the TV.
And this fucker is not about to ruin what’s left for us.
But don’t lose it, Noah. Not yet. Just wait.
The clicking of Buster’s nails on the hardwood grows louder, echoing down the short hallway. The massive fluffy farm dog trots right past the kitchen and turns the corner into the spare bedroom.
He stops dead in his tracks the second he sees me standing in the shadows. The fur on his spine stands up, and a low, rumbling growl vibrates in his chest.
“Buster, what did I tell you?” Bill’s gruff voice complains from the hall. “Get out of there. You need to go back outside!”
The dog doesn’t move. He barks a sharp warning at me.
Don’t attack me, Buster. Your master is a piece of shit. You gotta know that.
“Dammit, dog,” Bill snaps, his heavy work boots thudding against the floorboards as he steps into the doorway of the bedroom. “What the hell are you?—”
He doesn’t even have a second to process my face.
I launch myself out of the shadows like a loaded spring. I don't use my fists; I use my entire body weight, moving through him. I slam into Bill’s chest, my good right arm wrapping like a steel vice around his throat before he can even draw a breath to scream.
The momentum carries us backward into the hallway. We crash to the hardwood floor with a bone-rattlingthud.
