Page 113 of Not Mine to Rescue

“Do you think you’ll ever get your patch if you keep disobeying orders?”

“Point taken. C’mon, Dumb Ass, you gotta take your meds, too.”

This time it wasn’t just my hide on the line. I stopped his progress with a hand on his arm. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Yeah. One yellow pill before bedtime. Knocks him out. No more no less.”

“Only one,” I reminded him.

“I’m not stupid, just crippled.”

If he’d have landed worse, or if he’d not been in shape and practicing with Kid how to fight and fall, he would have died for certain. “You ain’t crippled. Just healing.”

“You sound like your sister. All woo-woo and shit.”

“We learned it from our parents.”

“Whatever, man.” He called my dog again, and this time DA listened. But he made his protest known as the door shut between us.

I stared at the barn some more, searching for movement.

“Fuck.”

Maybe I was torturing myself. I could have stayed at Honor’s. I could have gone inside with DA and Fly and slept on Lemon’s couch. Instead, I was out here looking for shadows.

The trees listened to my heartbreak, and the reminder I used to use like a shield. “Everyone leaves.”

“I won’t leave you.”

I froze. The feminine voice in the shadows wasn’t Lemon, and it sure wasn’t Honor. “Winter?”

“I won’t.”

My stomach coiled up into a knot, trying to hide just like my nuts had.

She stepped into the moonlight. A splinter of moonlight caught on the metal in her hand. “I didn’t know you owned a gun.”

“You’d be surprised at what you don’t know about me.”

That was an understatement. I didn’t dare move or let that thought cross my face, so I searched for something to keep her talking. “You burned my barn down.”

“How do you know that?”

“Cameras.”

Her fingers tightened on the handle of the snubbed .22 she pointed at me.

I scrambled for something to keep her from shooting me. “But the footage was grainy at best. I’m only guessing here.”

“It wasn’t me.”

Liar. “Right. Of course not. Why are you here, Winter?”

“I’m here to take you back.”

Over my dead… damn. I was a little slow on the uptake. She’d brought insurance to make her will known. “Are you sure you want me?”

“What’s not to like? You’re a Destroyer. The top of the peak, the baddest criminals in the county.”