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I hadn’t made it more than a few steps when I heard someone shout, “Don’t move!”
I instantly froze as I sought out the owner of the high-pitched voice. I finally spotted my quarry by the side of the cabin. I should have been unnerved by the sight of the revolver being pointed in my direction, but instead, I felt a sense of calm wash over me.
This was what I was good at.
Stick me in a room full of people I was expected to socialize with, and I was pretty much just a body turning oxygen into carbon dioxide. But point a gun at me or come at me with a knife and I fucking came alive. I didn’t seek death out, but I sure as hell got a twisted thrill when it came at me with everything it had.
Normally, I would have just lifted my gun and pulled the trigger before my assailant even had the chance to verbalize another useless threat, but when I realized who it was beneath the gray hoodie that offered no protection from the brutal cold, I stayed my hand.
Because the person pointing the gun at me wasn’t the man I was looking for. Hell, he wasn’t even a he.
No, I was staring into the wide-eyes of a fucking kid. And a girl at that.
I estimated her to be around fifteen or sixteen. Her long black hair was slung over one shoulder in a long braid and she was wearing a pair of tattered jeans. I couldn’t tell what kind of footwear she had on because her feet were buried in the ankle-deep snow. Several pieces of firewood were scattered around her and I realized she must have been getting the wood from the side of the cabin when she’d walked around to the front and spied me.
I scanned the rest of the area for other people, but no one appeared from the cabin and I didn’t see any other sets of footprints besides hers.
I eased my finger off the trigger of my gun, but didn’t put it away. The girl may not have been a typical threat, but she still posed a danger to me, especially considering how violently her hands were shaking as she held the gun on me. I estimated we were more than fifty feet apart; her chances of hitting me were slim, but not impossible. And I didn’t have a lot of places I could use for cover.
“I’m looking for Allen,” I called as I held my hands out. I took a couple of slow steps towards her.
“Don’t move!” she screamed.
I ignored the order and ever so slowly began closing the distance between us. “I just came to talk to him,” I said. “Do you know him?”
“Stay away from him! Do you hear me?!” she shouted.
Her skin was flushed, though I suspected it had more to do with her emotion than the cold weather.
“I hear you,” I said easily. “I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“You’re a fucking liar!” she screamed. “I know he sent you!”
I had no idea who he was, but before I could even ask, she wiped angrily at her face with one hand, holding the gun on me with the other. “Just leave us alone!”
Her voice was thick with emotion and I didn’t need to see her tears to know they were there. My insides clenched at the fear I was causing her, but I didn’t have a lot of options. I had closed the distance between us by more than half.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I said quietly, not sure if she even heard me over the blowing wind.
“Please,” she choked out and I saw her close her eyes for the briefest of moments. I used those few seconds to take several more steps towards her. When she opened them and realized how much closer I was to her, her panic kicked up to a whole new level.
“I’ll shoot you!” she screamed. She waved the gun wildly as she took a few steps back.
“Lucy?”
I stilled at the sound of another voice and glanced over my shoulder to see a man standing hunched over near the front door of the cabin. I automatically pointed my gun at him as I tried to assess the change in circumstances, but the move set the girl off.
“No!” she cried out and then the gun went off. Her shot went wild and sailed past me and slammed into the side of my truck. In the several seconds that passed, I did two things. I determined that the man was unarmed and not an immediate threat and that the girl was in a state of shock from what she’d done. I used the latter to my advantage and ran towards her. She screamed when she saw me coming and pointed the gun at me, but her slight hesitation as her finger searched out the trigger gave me the time I needed. As our bodies collided, I tried to brace her fall as I knocked the gun free from her hand, but I couldn’t prevent some of my weight from crashing down on her as we both hit the ground. She let out a whoosh of air as the wind got knocked from her.
