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He moved his hand back around the trunk and placed the butt of the gun in her palm. “The rope is loose enough that all it would take for you to break away is one good wiggle. Don’t make a move until you hear the first round of gunshots. After that, you duck, and run toward the woods right behind you. They don’t keep anyone stationed back there because of the lake blocking off access. You get in the lake and start fucking swimming, okay?”
She looked to her right with just her eyes at the lake right beside them. It wasn’t very big, more like an oversized pond, but still, the water had to be frigid. But Sparrow would rather drown or freeze to death than what her future held at this camp.
“You shoot any fucker who comes near you, and you don’t think twice, okay?”
She licked her lips. “Okay.” He sounded like Mason, but no, she couldn’t think about any of that right now. If she was fast enough, she might be able to elude this Collin guy as well, but his grin told her he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“And don’t worry, princess. I’ll be right behind you. I know these woods like the back of my fucking hand, so thinking you’ll make a clean getaway from me isn’t something you should get too excited about.” He stayed silent for a moment, no doubt to let those words sink in. “I also want to remind you I’m the one helping you out of this situation.”
“Yo, Collin, come have some shots with us,” the man she already pegged as the leader of this group shouted.
Everyone started clapping, and she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yeah, I understand.”
“Good, princess. That’s real good.” He pushed away from her and stalked back toward the fire. Guys slapped him on the back, and he took a seat beside the “leader.” For another ten minutes, Sparrow stood still, clenching and unclenching her hand around the butt of the gun and wanting nothing more than to blow a hole in each of these fuckers’ heads. But she wasn’t a fool. For one thing, she didn’t know how many bullets were actually in the gun, and secondly, there were far more men holding knives that looked as long as her damn forearm and rifles.
No, she’d do what Collin said and pray this worked. Once she was free from here, all she had to worry about was getting away from Collin. He might have said he wanted company, but Sparrow wasn’t stupid. He wanted a hell of a lot more than that. If he was hanging around men like this, chances were he was no better than they were. He may’ve masked it well, but she was better off and safer on her own.
Chapter Nine
Asher and Mason crouched behind a thick thistle bush. The blaze from the fire was intense, but it wasn’t the loud laughter of the men surrounding the fire that had them on alert. It was the fact that Sparrow was tied to a tree a few feet from these motherfuckers. The sun had already set, and the cloak of darkness blended them into their surroundings. They could hear the things these men wanted to do to her, vile and obscene things that had Asher’s skin tightening and his blood roaring in his ears.
He felt rage like he had never felt before, and when he looked over at Mason, saw the other man’s fierce look of concentration and the way he kept curling his fingers over the handle of his knife, Asher knew he was just as pissed. When they had made the trek through the woods, they had come up against a crudely made fence, and both of them knew on the other side of this barrier were the men who took Sparrow. There was no doubt in their minds, and already they had wasted too much time. They didn’t follow the fence completely around, but they assumed it circled the entire camp.
They hadn’t seen any men walking the perimeter, and so they tried to find a weak spot. The chain-link was older and rusty, but it had only taken them a matter of minutes to find a weak spot at the bottom of one section of the fence. It had been small, but after working at it, they had been able to pull at it enough that they could slip through.
If it were up to Ash, he’d go in there and blow every one of their fucking heads off, but the fact was, they were outnumbered in men and firepower, and they needed to be quiet, stealthy, and smart about this. Asher looked over at the big fucker who had spent an awful lot of time pressed up against Sparrow. The blond wasn’t like the other men. That was clear from Ash’s point of view. He kept his emotions in check, and wasn’t blatant in his actions like the rest of the scum that surrounded him. Asher didn’t know what his agenda was, but what he did notice was that the fucker took a special liking to Sparrow, and that didn’t sit well with him.
“We need to get her out of there, Mace.” He looked at the other man, and when he followed his line of sight, it was clear he was looking at the blond guy.
“I agree, but we need to be smart.”
Asher grunted and looked over at Sparrow. She was alert, taking in everything, and he was damn proud of that. Shit, he had grown attached to her in just these last couple days they had been together. It wasn’t something Asher had ever felt, and it certainly wasn’t something he was going to dismiss. He didn’t give a shit about what Mason said concerning the three of them. He had seen the way she looked at both of them.
There was desire and the need to stay with them. He didn’t doubt she probably thought they had skipped town and let her fend for herself. Hell, Mason even said he hadn’t been the one to offer her a place next to them on this journey, but they were about to change all that, and Asher would make sure she knew she did have a place with them.
“I don’t like how that blond asshole was all up on Sparrow.”
“Me neither, but right now, we need to get rid of these fucking guard dogs,” Asher said and looked over at where he saw one guy leaning against a tree smoking a joint. He had a shotgun hanging from his shoulder, but he was shit at his job, since he was too worried about puffing and less concerned about the men who were about to kill him.
“How do you want to proceed?” He looked at Mason once again.
“We need to be quick and quiet in taking out the two by the outer trees.” He looked at Asher, and even in the darkness, he could see the determination in his eyes. “I’m going to take the fucker on the left. You take the one on the right. No guns. I don’t want to alert the douchebags we’re here until we at least take out a handful.” Mason lifted up his knife and pointed it to Asher’s thigh. He took out his own knife, one that was just as long and serrated at Mace’s, and grinned. “There is a small farmhouse about a mile and a half from that fork in the trail I showed you. You remember?”
Asher nodded, remembering Mason showing him that the trail that veered off went to the far end of town.
“If you get to her first, you take her there. Just follow it straight up, and you won’t be able to miss it. I’m sure the path has been overgrown, since it’s clear these trails haven’t been used in years, but hopefully you won’t have a problem. I’ll meet you two at the house. Okay?” Mason went to stand, but Ash gripped his wrist and pulled him back down to his haunches.
“And if you get to her first, you’ll do the same.” He said it hard with a bite to his words. “No one is dying tonight, except the motherfuckers who took Sparrow.” They held stares for a long moment, and then Ash reached for Mason and pulled him forward. Their lips pressed together, and he slid his tongue along first the bottom and then his top lip.
They kissed for several seconds, tasting the interior of one another’s mouth but keeping their groans of pleasure to themselves. Ash cared about this man so much, knew Mason felt the same way, and they were going to go about this safely. Mason grabbed Ash’s bicep and squeezed the muscle tightly.
Mason murmured against his mouth, “The three of us will be fine.” He pulled away. Their breathing was fast and heavy. “We can’t let them live or they will just come back, all right?” Asher had already planned on killing every fucking one of them. He nodded, and Mason grinned. “I’ll start taking them out while you go to Sparrow. Kill anyone who stands in your way.” They kissed once more, and then Mason was moving silently toward the guy still puffing away at his joint. Asher stood and moved around the trees to make sure he wasn’t seen by his target. Mason was a military man, trained for these kinds of things. Ash may not have been trained by the government, but he knew how to kill a man with just a quick hit to the face. He squeezed the handle of his knife once more, and when he was close enough to smell the weed the guy was smoking, he took a second to assess his surroundings.
The sound of a soft gurgled grunt told him Mason took down his target, but the noise didn’t go unnoticed by the guard a few feet in front of him. Before he could call out to see if his buddy was okay, Asher struck. He moved swiftly behind him just as the guy realized he wasn’t alone. Throwing an arm around his throat, he slapped a hand over his mouth and brought the blade to his neck. In one quick move, he sliced the guy’s neck from ear to ear, feeling absolutely no remorse for taking his life. It was either kill or be killed.
These assholes deserved to die, just like the sick that wandered around aimlessly. They were humans who strayed from being decent. Killing them was doing a service to everyone who was trying to survive.
He let him fall to the ground in a silent lump and wiped off his blade on the back of the guy’s shirt. He lifted his head and saw Mason tilting his chin toward the group still huddled around the fire. Asher moved forward, parallel with Mason, until he was hidden behind the trunk of a thick tree.
