Page 143 of Darling Wildfire
“Aren’t you? I can feel my stomach kissing my spine. I feel like someone could come along and flick my forehead and I’d tip over.”
I waited until the dead of the night, almost late morning to ensure she was well and truly asleep. We were pretty convinced she was alone on the farm at this point but I still palmed the knife we’d found that first day in the shack—just in case—as I crept to the backdoor.
I carefully edged the door open just enough to slip through, thankful it didn’t squeak on its hinges. The back room was a mud and laundry room. It was mostly women’s shoes but there were a few men’s boots laying dusty underneath them. They didn’t look recently used and there was only women’s clothing on the washer and dryer, confirming my suspicion that there was a man of the house but he hadn’t been around in some time. The next room was a sitting room on one side and a dining room on the other. Both were comfortably furnished with old, handmade wood furniture.
A floorboard creaked as I was leaving the sitting room for the kitchen and I froze, wincing at how out of the ordinary it sounded in the dead stillnessof the house. I waited an excessive amount of time before moving again and made it into the kitchen in relative silence. It was a rare, clear night, so the moonlight filtered through the windows cast just enough light to see by.
I pocketed an apple sitting in a bowl on the counter and my mouth watered an embarrassing amount when I saw muffins sitting on a cooling rack. I grabbed one of those and bit into it, suppressing my moan of pleasure as the sweetness of wild blueberries exploded in my mouth. I saw some papers on a small desk and went over, sifting through them. I could barely make out what anything said, and I was holding up an envelope to the window to see the return address when the kitchen exploded with light.
“Don’t fucking move.” The woman’s voice said from behind me.
I held up my hands and carefully turned to see her holding a .357 leveled at me. Her eyes scanned me quickly, lingering on the faded, torn up camo pants I wore before jumping to my face. There was fear there but also a steel resolve I recognized—she would do what she had to.
“I’ll shoot,” she hissed.
“I have no doubts about that, ma’am,” I said softly, hands still up.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“I’m just passing through—”
“From where?”
I didn’t answer, and she scowled. She looked like she was around our age, late thirties, with blond hair in a messy bun and a long t-shirt down to her knees. I kept my eyes on her face, knowing I looked fearsome having not shaved in some time and so filthy I probably looked like a wild animal.
“Get out,” she growled.
I opened my mouth to say something and the barest twitch of her trigger finger was the only warning I had before she shot me. The gunshot rang out loud in the enclosed space and by some fucked up luck; I was mid step to the side, meaning the bullet barely grazed my arm. But now I had to move, so two steps brought me to her and I grabbed the gun, quickly shoving it up and flicking the cylinder. The clink of bullets falling echoed through the kitchen.
Before I could grab her other hand, I felt the bite of steel in my side, catching her wrist in time to avoid her shoving a knife into my ribs. I hissed at the pain and quickly turned her, slamming her wrist against the counter as I pressed her body against the island.
I happened to glance up in time to see Atlas and Nyx at the side door and before I could shake my head to stop them from coming in and making things worse, they opened the door, pulling the woman’s attention.
“Stop,” I barked. They froze just inside the door, quickly looking over the situation.
The woman was shaking in my arms, vibrating with a potent mix of fear and anger but at the sight of Nyx and Atlas, she stopped struggling, seeing the situation for what it was. She was no match for three men.
“Let me go, please,” she whispered, her words hitching in her throat.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” I said. “Like I said, we’re just passing through.”
“What do you want?” She hissed.
“Food mostly,” Nyx said, trying for a grin but with his beard and how dirty he was, it didn’t come across well. He must have seen the look on my face because he smoothed a hand over his beard and looked at the woman sheepishly.
“Sorry for scaring you, ma’am. We don’t usually look so—wild. I don’t know how people have beards—this thing itches something horrible.”
“If I let you go, will you promise to behave?” I asked. I could feel the blood dripping down my side and my arm and I needed to see the damage she’d done. “Let go of the knife.”
She hesitated but the hand I had pinned slowly relaxed and I grabbed the knife and tossed it to Nyx. He caught it and put it in his belt. I nodded to the gun and Atlas carefully stepped forward and picked it up, checking to make sure it was empty and shoving it into his belt.
“Please don’t—don’t take that,” she pleaded.
I stepped back away from her as Atlas held up his hands.
“Just holding it for you,” he said. “I’ll give it back when we leave.”
“She got you good there,” Atlas nodded to my side.
