Page 60 of Last Light

Travis moves so his body is shielding me completely from the speaker.

“I’m talking to you, sister.” The woman’s voice is loud and clear and confident. “We’ll kill this man if you want us to. You don’t have to stay with him. We’ll keep you safe if you want to come with us.”

My hand flattens on Travis’s back in surprise. “I don’t want you to kill him. Please don’t.”

“Then we can tie him up. Keep him from following you. You can be free of him. Just say the word.”

I suddenly understand what’s happening here, what these women are offering me.

I attempt to ease Travis out of the way.

“Layne, don’t—” He tries to keep me in place behind him with one arm.

“No, it’s fine. They’re not going to hurt me.” I come out from behind him and face the woman who’s been speaking. “Are you?”

“No. We won’t hurt you. But we’ll hurt him if you want us to.” Her dark eyes hold mine, and the message is unmistakable.

“I don’t want you to hurt him. He’s been good to me.”

“We’ll be good to you without any strings.”

“He never demanded anything from me. He never even asked. I promise he didn’t. He’s a good man.”

The woman looks between Travis and me. Her jaw relaxes just slightly. “Not sure there are any good men left.”

“There are. At least this one.”

I glance over, and Travis is watching me. His eyes are deep with something I don’t understand.

“Okay.” The woman gestures at the women with her, and they all lower their weapons.

There are a lot of them. Female. Strong. Competent. Fierce.

I want to be that way too.

“I’m Maria,” the woman says. “You can still come with us. We won’t hurt your man. You’ll be a lot safer with us than with him.”

I can see quite clearly that it’s true. No matter how strong Travis is, he’s one man. There are nearly forty women here—I can see now that I have a better vantage point. All of them armed. All of them working together as a unit. “We can come with you?”

Maria shakes her head. “You can. He can’t.”

“Oh.”

I turn to Travis. He’s lowered his shotgun, and his face is strangely closed off. He takes a step closer to me and murmurs, “You can go with ’em if you wanna, Layne. You’ll be safer with ’em than with me.”

I grab for his arm. “But I can’t leave—”

“Don’t matter. I’ll be fine. You go on with ’em if you want.”

I look back to Maria. She’s tall. Beautiful. A warrior. Completely in control.

No one is going to touch her unless she wants them to.

“Your man will be all right,” she says. “He looks like he can take care of himself.”

I know he’ll be all right.

But I don’t want to leave him, not even for the chance of being safer.

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