Page 12 of Fence

“I can’t imagine, what with her being here in the dark,” I muttered. What was she doing there?

“I don’t like this.” Gate looked at me. “I really don’t.”

“Neither do I, but what do you suggest? That we just leave her here? She’s already seen too much, I’d wager. What if she tells somebody what she found here?” I looked around, pointing down the tunnel toward the entrance. “She was facing the entrance, which means she was going in that direction. She’s already seen everything.”

“Great. What do we do? Kill her?”

I shot my brother a dirty look. “Yes. Because that’s the sort of thing we do.”

“Well? Do you have a better idea? There’s no way of telling if she’ll keep her mouth shut, unless we shut it.”

“All right, all right.” Miles placed a hand on both our shoulders. “What if we take a step back and consider this rationally? I agree that we can’t leave the girl here, especially if she wakes up and decides to explore a little more. Nobody needs that. But we can’t take the chance of her leading others here to look around, too. The only option left is to take her with us.”

The dragon inside me couldn’t have been happier. But he was the only one who was even remotely pleased.

“What are we supposed to do? Let her stay at the hotel? Bring her home with us?” Gate’s voice grew louder with each word, until he was shouting.

“Stop…” The girl surprised me by rolling her head from side to side. “Stop fighting…”

“Shh!” I held up a hand to silence him, hovering over her.

I was already insanely protective. Somebody had to keep her safe, after all.

Gate muttered to himself, but I ignored him in favor of her.

“Hurts…” she whimpered, eyelids fluttering.

“You’ll be all right,” I said, leaning close.

She was a vision—creamy skin, high cheekbones, full, cherry red mouth.

The dragon roared his approval.

Her eyes opened, focused on me. The most striking hazel, flecked with gold. They narrowed in confusion as she frowned. “Who are you?”

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