Page 34 of Fight or Fly

TWELVE

Jax

THE TWO omegas at myside were instantly awake, instinct pulling them from sleep in response to my sudden tension.

“What is it?” Leona asked, terror underlying her hoarse whisper.

It occurred to me what had happened to her the last time she’d been abruptly awoken from a sound sleep in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, I couldn’t guarantee it wasn’t about to happen again, even though whoever was outside would have to get past me to get to either of them.

“Something tripped one of the alarms,” I said, rising to my feet. “Could be another wandering deer. Could be something worse.”

Her eyes were very wide, luminous in the weak moonlight filtering through the trees outside.

“What should we do?” Kam asked quietly. He sounded more resigned than panicked.

“I need you to get the box of Molotov cocktails out of the storage room and soak the wicks with vodka.” I pulled a lighter out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Leona, watch the driveway while I get to the other side of the house and check on the disturbance. Give a yell if you see anyone approaching from the front.”

They both nodded their understanding. With a deep breath, I hurried off to see how much shit we were in, leaving them to get things prepped at the front of the house. Using the Molotovs in a wooded area like this was a gamble, but we were seriously low on options. There was no wind to speak of tonight, and I was banking on the surrounding forest being too damp to sustain the kind of fire that might blow back on us and burn down the house.

At best, the homemade firebombs might give anyone approaching second thoughts, while also illuminating the scene outside to give me a better view of my targets. At worst, they’d cause a bit more chaos than I could manage alone with just a pair of semiautomatic handguns.

I jogged through the house, my nerve-damaged left side complaining with every step. My head ached a bit more than usual tonight, not helped by the current adrenaline dump.

Suck it up, buttercup. I could almost hear Flynn’s voice in my ear. As long as my vision didn’t start swimming badly enough to affect my aim, I’d deal with it.

The safehouse had security lights on each of the outside walls, but we’d kept them off to avoid attention from anyone who might have a clear line of sight to the house at night. No point in advertising our presence here, after all.

Now, however, I charged into the dining room on the side of the house where the noise had come from and switched on the exterior floodlight. It illuminated the woods beyond the grassy side yard, throwing crazy shadows among the branches and tree trunks.

Some of those shadows were moving.

“Fuck,” I breathed.

We’d left the window open, to make listening for noise coming from outside easier. Standing to one side, out of the line of fire, I pulled the gun from my shoulder holster, checked the clip, and loosed a shot in the direction of the movement among the trees. I held out very little hope of hitting anything through the confusion of trees and underbrush, but getting confirmation that we were armed and aware of their approach might at least slow our attackers down and make them rethink their strategy.

I ducked behind the cover of the wall again, waiting to see if there’d be any immediate return fire. There wasn’t.

Leona slipped into the room a few moments later. I waved at her to stay out of any potential line of sight from outside. She crouched low and skirted the wall to approach me.

“There are people moving around in front, and also on the west side of the house,” she said. Her voice was shaking. “The east side is so overgrown that it’s difficult to tell, but there may be some there, too. It’s hard to see how many there are, exactly, but... well... it’s a lot.”

We were in trouble, and she knew it.

“The moment anyone leaves the tree line, you lob a Molotov at them,” I said, just as another clatter of tin cans came from the woods to the west. “I’ll try to keep them busy here and on the east side. They haven’t fired on us yet, but there’s no question they’ll be armed. Stay away from the windows except to hurl bottles at them.”

“Jax,” she said quietly. “There are too many. The three of us won’t be able to fight them off by ourselves.”

“If they get in, you and Kam run upstairs to the nest,” I said, not answering her directly. “I’ll try to hold them at the bottom of the stairs.”

She gave me a heartbroken look, and it was fucking Romania all over again—knowing that all I could do was die for them, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I could tell she wanted to argue with me. Instead, she reached up and grasped the back of my neck, pulling me down for a brief kiss.

“All right,” she whispered, her voice husky with emotion. “Thank you, Jax.”

My throat tried to close up, but we didn’t have time for that kind of shit.

“Go,” I managed. “Throw a few bottles at them and make them think twice about leaving the trees.”

With a hesitant nod, she retraced her steps along the wall and ducked out, returning to herodamaat the front of the house. I shoved every emotion except cold anger down into the deep, dark pit behind my ribs, and snuck another look out of the corner of the window. The shadows seemed closer, so I let off another shot—painfully aware that my supply of ammunition was far from bottomless.

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