Page 7 of The Last True Hero
"When?"
"I don't know. I'll have to ask her first." He hesitated. "It would help if she knew she had your blessing."
Mia smiled bitterly. "More lies I have to tell my sister. Don't you ever get sick of it? I do."
"I—"
A commotion sounded outside, engines roaring and tires squealing. She'd probably have noticed it earlier, if not for her absorption in their argument.
Jake found his feet, his body tense. Salvation Creek was a quiet town, and no commotion was ever a good omen. "Stay there," he said, with a sharp cutting motion of his hand, then turned toward the door, one hand on the pistol holstered at his hip.
"Like hell I will," Mia grumbled, grabbing her shotgun from under the bar and then leaping over the counter.
Outside, dust hung in the air as four vehicles jerked to a halt in the street. Three of them were salvaged from scrap with different-colored doors, but one of them was whole, a dull red that had once been shiny.
Her heart dropped through her boots again as she saw it. "Thwaites," she whispered, pausing at Jake's side. The rancher owned a good portion of the land near Salvation Creek.
His farmhands spilled out of the vehicles, two of them carrying another. Then Thwaites himself appeared. There was blood smeared up his face, and his shirt was soaked with it.
Mia's heart twisted as she searched through the faces. No.No. She darted forward, shoving through the men, searching for the one face she didn't see. "Sage?Sage!"
Ethan Thwaites turned toward her, his arm hanging bloody at his side and his face smeared with dirt and sweat. Normally a big man with a hearty laugh and a booming voice, he'd never looked so beaten down, so small. "Mia," he breathed. "I'm so sorry."
"What happened? Where is everyone? Where's my sister?" Sage worked on retainer for Thwaites, and the last Mia had seen of her sister, she'd taken the old jeep out toward his place last night to see to some problem with Thwaites's water pump. Sage had planned to stay the night there.
She barely felt Jake's presence at her back. All she could do was cling to Ethan Thwaites's coat.
"Reivers," he said. "A good forty of them. They hit us this morning, just before dawn. Came in quiet-like with no cars or bikes. One minute I was eating breakfast, the next they were there shooting at us. Jesus." He scraped his good hand over his face. "They dropped Maggie in the kitchen whilst I still had a fucking spoon of porridge in my hand. If I hadn't reacted as quickly as I did, then this"—he gestured to his limp arm—"wouldn't be my worst problem."
"What about the outposts?" Jake asked, his voice hard. "How'd they come in so quietly? The men on duty should have seen something."
"Don't know," Thwaites replied dully. His eyes were glassy with pain. "No word from them."
"Those men had radios." Jake searched Thwaites's eyes.
"Then maybe they didn't see the reivers coming either? I gathered those I could and came here. The rest of them I left at the ranch, to bury the dead."
Dead. "What happened to Sage?" Mia demanded.
Thwaites wouldn't meet her eyes. "They took all of the women they could, Mia. Those that didn't die in the first attack. We were holed up in the barn trying to keep them at bay, but most of the household staff were trapped inside the main house. I don't know where Sage is—maybe she got free, maybe she ran—but I didn't see her body anywhere."
Her breath caught in a half sob. "You left them in the main house, defenseless?"
Thwaites flinched as if she'd struck him. "Allof the women, Mia. You don't see my wife here, do you?" he demanded. "Or my daughters. I was trying to gather the men to fight them off. We were trapped like fucking rats."
"Mia," Jake warned, grabbing her arm.
"I'm sorry." This couldn't be happening. She clapped a hand over her mouth. She'd lost both parents to a shadow-cat attack when she was only fifteen. Her aunt Jenny had taken her and Sage in, but Mia had always known that it was just the pair of them now against the world. Maybe it was the fact they'd both been adopted and had no one else, but Sage was her entire world.
She'd sat in the dirt at her parents’ grave and promised them she'd look out for her little sister. No matter what happened.
"What are we going to do?" Jake asked, low and soft.
"I'm riding after them," Thwaites said. "I need men though. And guns. Are you with me?"
"Never any doubt." Jake's lips thinned. "That's my wife out there. I know what reivers do to women, Ethan. If we don't get them back and soon, there might not be much left to get back."
Tears shone bright in the old rancher's eyes. "I know."
"And I'll be riding with you," Mia declared, daring either of them to say no.
