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I mean, for goodnesssakes, it could have just been the chickens slamming around in their coop, trying to get comfortable in the heat.
The open windows said there was a bit of a breeze but their area might still be stuffy.
The thing was, there had been a few just… weird things over the past few days. But they were just shy of outright suspicious, so I was trying to convince myself that my mind was running away with itself.
For example, my back glass door was broken. The glass was completely shattered.
It happened when I was off trying to locate one of my missing chickens who had gotten itself tangled up in some brambles and needed extraction.
It was weird.
But not outright… suspicious.
Then there was the time that I was out getting water for the garden and my shower, having to bring my wagon with me because I needed so much. And I’d kicked out of my shoes to sink my feet in the water to cool off before the trip home.
When I got back to my stuff, my shoe was gone.
Just one of them.
Again, weird.
I was alone in the middle of nowhere.
But it could have been an animal.
By the time I got home, the bottom of my shoeless foot was torn and bloody, needing to get some home remedies and a wrap for a day or two.
Just, you know, weird shit.
So the noise outside had me pressing a hand to my hammering heartbeat, sure this was the start to some sort of horrible horror movie.
Granted, I wasn’t a helpless girl exploring the basement in her underwear.
I was heavily armed with all sorts of terrible poisons.
That was what I liked about poison.
I didn’t need brute strength or finely honed skills.
I just needed a blade dipped in an oily salve. Or a dropper that could be shoved into a mouth or an eye, causing catastrophic damage in moments.
I suddenly wished I was a badass MMA fighter or something, though, as I sat there in complete silence, listening so hard that I was pretty sure I was just starting to create noises in my head after a while.
It was right about the time that I was telling myself that I needed to turn off the light and go back to sleep when it happened.
More shuffling.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
Footsteps.
Right outside the house.
Not animal ones, either.
No, those were human footsteps.
I never really worried too much about my safety in my little homestead in the middle of nowhere.
But as I started to climb down my storage steps from my loft, clutching a blade to my chest, I suddenly realized just how vulnerable I was.
I had no neighbors.
I had a phone, but it was dead since I only used it once in a blue moon.
And even if I had it on and charged, what was I going to do? Call the police? Who might inform me that my whole life was illegal and I had to leave?
I was truly and genuinely alone in the world.
I never felt as scared as I did as I crept through my lower level, grabbing another knife and shoving it into my pocket. Then I got a dropper with some wicked liquid and put that into my other pocket as I made my way to the back door.
Whoever it was, I wasn’t going to let them trap me in my own home, to turn it into a house of horrors.
If some sort of attack was going to happen, I wanted it to happen outside. Where I could fight. And if I couldn’t fight, I could run.
True, I was miles and miles from everywhere, but fear could light a fire under your ass, could make you run faster than ever before.
And what was the closest occupied building to my little homestead?
An outlaw biker compound full of illegal guns.
Safe.
I’d be safe there.
I was even considering trying to make a run for it ahead of time when I heard the footsteps come to a stop, seemingly outside my front door.
Something about that had rage bubbling up and boiling over, stealing any thoughts of flight.
No.
I wanted to fight.
Taking a deep breath, I crouched down and crept around the side of my house where I stopped to steady myself, then ran at my target, knife out.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” a voice hissed as a hand grabbed my wrist with the knife in it, yanking it up as my body was shoved back and slammed against my house.
There was the start of fear before I realized this whole situation was eerily familiar.
And so was that voice.
“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this, Red,” Crow’s voice said, sounding amused.
“Crow?” I asked, slow blinking at the near complete darkness.
“Yeah, baby, who’d you think it was?” he asked.
“Some creeper or something,” I admitted. “Hence the knife,” I added as he removed it from my hand, and dropping it on the ground.
