Page 65 of Taken for Granite
Juniper put her finger over her lips and shushed her. She edged closer to the window to peek out. Two black SUVs, the same make and model as the one she took from the Rose people, pulled up. Four people, all dressed in expensive black suits, climbed out.
Not friends, then.
Three of the agents stood in place, like they expected Tas to immediately surrender. The fourth, a woman with pale hair, took off behind a building.
“The blonde is Rhododendron, isn’t she?” Juniper remembered Tas talking about his handler.
“Yes. Remain hidden,” he said, hand on the door.
“No!” Juniper tugged on his arm. “What is it with you and turning yourself into these people?”
“I will fight. They are only three humans.” His tone implied that it wasn’t much of a fight.
“They probably have weapons and you have a crowbar.”
“Most likely they have tranquilizer darts. I can smell gun oil, so they must have pistols on them. I do not detect heavy artillery.”
“Heavy artillery? What is wrong with you?” she whispered. These people hunted gargoyles. They had special anti-gargoyle guns and Tas thought he could duke it out with his fists?
He gave her a grin, one filled with confidence about himself and his abilities, and at that moment, she believed he could beat an army with nothing more than a crowbar.
With his hands on her upper arms, he pulled her to him. “Fear not,” he said, pressing his forehead to hers. “I will always return to you.”
Heart in her throat, she nodded. “Okay.”
He gave her arms a quick squeeze before bursting out the front door.
“What odious weeds! I think I need to do a spot of gardening,” Tas announced.
Chloe swallowed a snort at the cheesy line. Juniper silently agreed.
Tas threw the crowbar at the nearest male, crashing into his knee, and launched himself in the air. The two standing agents aimed pistols at him and Juniper’s heart thumped wildly.
She couldn’t watch. With her back to the wall, she slumped to the floor. She never believed herself to be the type of person who sat by helplessly, wringing her hands, but there she was, clutching her hands to her chest and too afraid to watch.
When a pistol fired, she closed her eyes.
Chloe dove into her, wrapping her arms around her like a lifeline.
“Aren’t you just precious?”
The blonde woman stood over her, pistol pointed at her.
Fuck. She didn’t lock the door.
Juniper jumped to her feet, pushing Chloe behind her. “Rhododendron,” she said.
The woman wrinkled her nose. “Rhoda, please. Now, the door. Hurry, hurry.” Rhoda waved her pistol toward the open door.
“What do you want?”
“I’d like for my Christian name not to be Rhododendron, for a start, but that’s neither here nor there.”
“Tas told me what you did—how you helped him.”
Rhoda sighed. “And did he tell you how I warned him to disappear? To keep his head down because we would be looking for him? And did he?”
“This is my fault,” Chloe whispered.
