Page 6 of Twisted Road

Keys slammed the blade into the back of Hank’s neck, severing the spinal cord, shoved the body aside as it began to crumple toward the ground and kicked Chester in the head, driving him off Lyric. He’d killed three men in under eight seconds. He knew because he kept track of that shit in his head.

Straight up killers had to know how long it took them to get the job done. He’d been fast and accurate and taken out three of the five men. Chester let out a roar and rolled, coming to his feet, pulling a knife. Keys didn’t hesitate. He’d never worried about how big or small a target was, just getting the job done. He slapped Chester’s arm away and slammed his knife into the man’s throat, diving away from Lyric toward the protection of the large tree he’d first been close to.

Shots spat into the leaves all around him. Slight miscalculation. Merrit had a gun. He fired several rounds as he ran around the large truck to put it between himself and Keys. Keys rolled closer to the tree, hoping for cover, but there wasn’t much. It was only a matter of time before the asshole would nail him.

Movement caught his eye. Chester had removed Lyric’s cuffs, but he hadn’t massaged her arms. She had to be in hell right now. More than once, as a child, he’d dealt with the very thing she was having to do, rub some sensation back into her numb arms and hands while keeping the movement so slow and careful that she wouldn’t be noticed.

To keep Merrit’s attention on him, he rolled again and did a lizard crawl, deliberately zigzagging in the leaves to cause as much noise as possible. When the bullets hit too close for comfort, he made his move back to the tree. Sadly, he’d left the knife in Chester’s throat. It wasn’t like he had a gun or other weapons for long-range fighting. He would have to come up with a plan to get to Merrit. He wasn’t about to leave him alive, even if that meant his own death. The man wasn’t getting to Lyric. No fuckin’ way.

Keys gave Lyric another quick look. Her hand was inside the pocket of her jacket. Chester had managed to shove the garment off her shoulders, where it still clung to her arms.

Knowledge dawned. He swore under his breath. He should have known. Should have expected her to do the exact opposite of what he’d told her to do. Earlier, in the casket, he’d told her not to move. She had obeyed even in the face of rape and a vicious beating. That had lulled him into a false sense of security. He should have been remembering that Lyric had charged into the fray when he’d had five men attacking him with baseball bats outside her shop. That was the Lyric he should have remembered, not the scared, panicked, docile one in the coffin.

He didn’t believe in a god, but he found himself praying, Please don’t take her. Not her. Please don’t let her do this.

She did it. Her eyes met his and she leapt to her feet, a distraction to Merrit so the gun swung to aim at her.

“Keys,” she called as the pair of very sharp scissors came hurtling end over end toward him like a silver missile cutting through the driving rain.

He was on his feet, catching, reversing and throwing with deadly accuracy at Merrit despite the fact that he didn’t have time to calculate the drop or spin. He willed the scissors to hit his intended target and sprinted behind them.

Merrit squeezed off four rapid rounds at Lyric. Key counted every single one. The scissors penetrated Merrit’s left eye. Due to the added adrenaline of pure fear that Lyric was going to take a bullet for him, he’d sent the weapon with enormous strength, and the scissors buried themselves all the way to the round handles.

Merrit screamed, the sound one of an agonized animal. There was no sound from Lyric, and Keys didn’t look. He couldn’t afford the distraction. He was on Merrit, jerking the gun from his hand, putting it to the man’s head and pulling the trigger rapidly. He hoped, if Lyric was still alive, that she didn’t see the head blown apart and that Keys had shot the bastard several more times than necessary.

Close-up, he took the hit, blood splattering everywhere, but he didn’t give a flying fuck. He shoved the gun into the back of his waistband as he whirled around to see Lyric alive. Sitting on the ground. There was blood on the back of her head from when she’d been struck with the baseball bat. There was more on her left arm, up high toward her biceps, and another splash of blood on her left leg.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he demanded as he stalked her. He had felt rage often in his life. One couldn’t survive without that fire burning deep, but this was something altogether different. “Swear to Christ, woman, I’m going to turn you over my knee and paddle some sense into you.” He bit the promise out between his teeth because he felt like a rabid animal, and it was the only way he could say a thing.

She raised her vivid emerald eyes to his. He saw pain there. He also saw that sense of humor that he couldn’t resist. “Do me a favor and give me a rain check on that. Something interesting to look forward to, I suppose, but right now, I just want to lie down.”

“Not right there. You’re soaked. Let’s get you out of the rain.” He crouched low and slid his arms under her knees and behind her back.

“Um, I appreciate your help, but if you’re planning to put me back in the coffin, I prefer you just leave me right here. Moving kind of hurts.”

“Don’t be a baby. You’re the one who can’t seem to obey the simplest order. What were you thinking? We’re not Bonnie and Clyde, for fuck’s sake.” He lifted her easily. It wasn’t as if Lyric weighed much. But his legs were shaking. So were his hands. If he was being honest with himself, his heart was shaken. Bog, this woman was going to be the death of him, and it made zero sense.

“Really? Bonnie sounds so much more down-to-earth than Lyric. I kind of liked the idea of a partnership. You know. I help when someone needs to save your life.”

“First I’m going to paddle your ass until you can’t sit down for a week, and then I’m going to strangle you.”

He yanked open the passenger-side door of the truck. The driver’s side was smashed, caved in and useless to him. He put her carefully on the seat. She was shaking from the cold. Her clothes had to come off, and he had to take a look at her wounds. All of them. The sight of her like that increased his anger, but he shoved it aside.

“Taking your clothes off. You can’t get hypothermia on top of everything else.” He dragged the jacket down her arms. She winced, her face going even paler than it had been. That dusting of freckles stood out even more, and he had the insane urge to kiss every one of them.

The problem was, he didn’t have anything to replace her wet clothes. It was freezing, and he was just as soaked.

Lyric closed her eyes, turning her face away from him, but she didn’t protest. He wanted to wrap her up, cover her with his body to stop the shaking. He needed to see to her wounds, ensure they weren’t life-threatening, but he needed heat.

The keys were in the ignition. The truck was wrapped around a tree, but if he could get it started, he would be able to turn on the heater. It wouldn’t last long, but it would help. Then he’d rummage through the truck and see what he could find in the way of anything dry that would help.

“Give me one second, babe.” He made up his mind as he stripped the jacket from her. Her top was torn into strips and didn’t do anything to cover her slender form. He had the insane urge to go put a couple of bullets in Chester just for the hell of it. Bruises had already formed on Lyric’s face and around her breasts. He shouldn’t have killed the bastard outright. She had several old scars that looked suspiciously like a knife had made them, but how would Lyric ever have been involved in a knife fight? And definitely, by the number of scars, on the losing end. He pushed aside speculation and paid attention to the present problems.

The wound in her arm was superficial. Had to hurt like hell, but the bullet had only shaved a few layers of skin. Relief flooded him. He caught at the waistband of her jeans. She gasped as he tried to gently work them over her hips and down her thighs. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t reprimand him or burst into tears, she just made that one single sound, a rush of air, pain flashing over her face, and she turned her head away from him.

“Damn it, Wildfire. You drive me insane. You don’t need to be all stoic. I can handle a few tears and maybe some screaming when it hurts.” He sounded like an asshole, his voice rough and scary.

“You sound angry.”