AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ryth
“You knowwhat you have to do, right?” Tobias didn’t look at me, his focus was fixed on the dark blue Explorer parked further down the street. Its headlights were off, but there had been movement a while ago behind the dark tinted windows. Someone was in there, two someones we assumed.
I swallowed my breath, trying to quell the shallow pants.
We were parked a street behind our target. We’d been sitting here, behind the overgrown brushes of the corner house, for the last hour. But it didn’t matter how long we sat here, I still couldn’t stop the shakes, not from my fingers or my knees. I gripped them, crushing my fingers as my legs smashed together.
“We’ll find another way.” Tobias turned and met my stare. “It’s okay. We’ll find another way.”
I shook my head. “No. I want to do this.”
He shook his head, and that spark of anger ignited inside me. “Tobias.”
“Our way, little mouse,” he reminded me. “You promised.”
Fuck.
I turned my focus back to the dark Explorer, and seethed.
“If we don’t do this, T, then we may as well start running now,” Nick’s voice was low and careful as he sat behind the wheel, staring at the same car we did. “She’ll never be safe, never stop worrying. We’ll never know when that fucking recording will surface again. You want that for her?”
He shifted his gaze to the rear-view mirror to see his brother.
Come on…come on…
My knees jerked and bounced no matter how hard I clenched.
“If anything happens,” Tobias murmured. “Anything you’re not prepared for—”
“Then I’ll scream,” I answered, drawing his focus to me. “I’ll scream and you’ll come running, and then the bad guys will be dead.”
He knew it. I knew it. There was no way anyone inside or around this house was getting out of this alive. I only prayed we would, that we would get that recording and get out, and fuck everyone else. Because Nick was right, there was no running from this. How could you run from a threat? The answer was simple; you couldn’t.
You eliminated the threat.
You countered the threat with violence and death.
Fighting for peace.
Tobias’s dark eyes were haunted, fixed on mine, as he whispered, “I can’t lose you.”
“Then don’t lose me.”
He searched my stare, desperate to find a reason why we should just turn tail and run. I straightened my spine and clenched my jaw, determined he’d find no weakness in me.
“Fine,” he muttered.
“Fine,” I answered, then held my breath and looked away.
He wouldn’t see it…because Irefusedto let him see it. I eased my grip on my knees, feeling the throb as blood rushed back into my fingers, and I reached for the door handle. But before I pulled, Tobias murmured, “I’ll be right there, little mouse. Right fucking there.”
I turned my head, meeting his stare once more. “I know you will.” Then I yanked the handle and opened the door.
The interior light didn’t come on, at best there was a tinyclunkbefore the door pushed open and I all but fell out. My legs were made of jelly, for some reason my knees were nowhere to be found. I jerked and stumbled, finally found my feet, and slowly, achingly slowly, headed for the house.
I forced myself to stare at the sidewalk as I rounded the bush and cut across the corner of the yard. The dark green grass and the tops of my boots were all I saw. I wore jeans, because there was no way in fucking hell I was letting that man get anywhere near me.
Never again…
