Page 117 of Keep Your Guard Up
Chance all but growled when he turned to face her. “I’m here. We had a deal—I’m here, so let her go.” He slowly took steps around her, moving in a way that made Talia think it was her own motions. They turned a full 90 degrees before Chance met my eyes again. He stared at me—if I’d blinked, I would have missed it.
His eyes, they quickly flicked to my left.
“Baby, you know I can’t do that,” Talia purred, now trailing her fingertips up and down Chance’s forearms. “And ifIcan’t have you … no one can.”
A subtle flaying of a hand to my left, just past the grandfather clock that JJ and I had accidentally broken when we were fifteen, grabbed my attention.
JJ’s eyes flared when I met his gaze, and he pressed a finger to his lips. A steel baseball bat was in his other hand. He twirled his finger, telling me to turn back around.
I nodded and my legs began to shake in anticipation to run.
A knife and atleastone gun against a baseball bat.
Running was the best option.
“Of course you can have me,” Chance’s voice softened, his heated gaze falling onto Talia’s face.
I knew that heat, not the wild, flowing, carefree flames he had when he was with me. No, this was straight from the pit of a bushfire—the part that burned the most.
“Come on. This will draw way too much attention for us to get out of here together.”
Talia’s free hand was now grazing Chance’s face.
I swallowed the fury that built up inside me at the sight, even when the lines of tension formed at the corners of his mouth.
He leaned into the touch, moving her head off centre as JJ crept close and closer. His bottom lip was no longer swollen. The cut that graced it was closed but still present.
“Trust me, baby. I won’t get caught.” The she-devil let out a revoltingly sweet laugh.
JJ’s footsteps were quiet, barely audible, but getting closer as he moved along the open hallway and into the room we were all currently in. But he knew this house better than anyone—knew where every creak in the floor was. Hell, he was the expert sneaker-outerer when we’d both hit our ‘rebellious teenager’ phase.
I couldn’t help but internally laugh at what our younger selves would think of this situation we were in—we thought we’d been through tough shit then. This? This was real stuff. Big, scary, evil, real-world shit.
Chance stared Talia down, and he swallowed the grimaces fighting to surface.
She was mid-sentence when a creak sounded, right under JJ’s boot-covered foot.
“I hate things on my feet. I’ll only wear my Doc Martens when I know shit is gonna go sideways. Like if I know Jayden’s very punchable face is going to be anywhere near me.”
I opened my mouth to speak, to try and cover for the noise when she whirled, firing blindly but missing JJ’s thankfully moving target. She fired again. Adrenalin rushed so quickly to my skin it prickled.
Fantastic. Gunfire was going off around me, and I was tied to a fucking chair.
Chance grabbed Talia’s arm, forcing her into a severely uncomfortable shoulder lock.
Oh, Chance.
A gun didn’t require two hands.
Another shot went off and a scream ripped through me as Chance, the love of my life, dropped a hand to his abdomen. Dark, wine-red blood was already pouring past his fingertips.
“Not very nice of you,sweetheart,” Talia hissed, rolling out her shoulder. “Now, where is that friend of yours?”
~
My head screamed, every single neuron inside buzzing in panic. My heart pounded.
Chance.
