Page 103 of Little Bird
Then they start holding up their guns, and I realize that we’re in trouble.
Because this was never going to be a negotiation. They came to take Taryn for reasons I still don’t understand, and if we fight them, they’re going to kill us.
This was never a choice at all. It was a setup.
Gunner
I watch the men stepping out of the trees, my blood running cold and sluggish.
Shit.
I knew we could be in trouble—one look at Helen’s new husband told me that Taryn was right when she said he was dangerous—but I didn’t expect them to have brought an army with them. And for one long, slow second, I think we’re finished. There’s nothing we can do. This is the end of our story.
Then I meet Taryn’s eyes and know that I will fight until the end of my life to keep her safe. I’ll sell my soul and the souls of everyone I hold dear if it means she gets to come back home to us. Come into the house and go back to her cookies. Wrap presents with me later tonight and stay up too late talking about what we want to do in the future. Because I want to see her tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after that. I want the future that’s been floating in the back of my mind. The happy house, the warmth, the laughter.
I want toffee chip cookies every day of the week.
If she’ll bake them for me.
And something that’s been missing for far too long finally clicks back into place, like my spine has remembered how to be straight. My hands have remembered how to punch.
My soul has remembered how to fight.
I step forward, grab Taryn, and push her behind me into Gabe’s arms. I want to hold her myself, but I have other things I have to do right now, and I know Gabe will protect her. I pull the two revolvers I stuffed into the back of my pants out, jerk them up in front of me, and click the safeties off.
Because if Helen thinks I’m giving Taryn up without a fight, she has another fucking thing coming. She might have more men than I do, but I’ve lived on the mountain my whole life, and I bet I know how to shoot better than all of them. I might die doing it, but it’ll give Gabe time to get Taryn back into the house and to his own guns.
Is this a suicide mission? Yes.
But I’ve just found the girl again, and now that she’s given me my soul back, nothing else matters. Nothing but her. So if I have to spend my own life to keep her here, I’ll do it.
If I can save her and my son, I won’t think twice. I’ll just have to watch over them from Heaven.
Besides, I know something they don’t. And if I can keep Helen and her men distracted for long enough, they might be the ones dying.
In front of me, Helen is muttering something to her new husband, her eyes on me and her lips moving quickly. She doesn’t look like she’s telling him to stand down. God, what the fuck happened to the woman since the last time I saw her? She was never affectionate or overly loving, but this is beyond what I would have expected of her.
Gabe used to be her stepson. Taryn is her daughter. And I’m...
Nothing to her, I realize suddenly. I might have been something important once, but these days, I’m nothing to her, and she’s going to try to eliminate me as quickly as she can so she can get what she wants from her daughter.
Around us, the men start fingering their triggers like they’re getting ready to shoot, and I tense. If they start shooting, I’m not going to make it out of this. But I’ve got two guns and two targets: Helen and her husband. If they’re dead, they won’t threaten Taryn anymore, and if she and Gabe survive, they’ll be able to stay here together.
And as my vision narrows down on the people I’m about to shoot, it’s the only thing I can think of.
Then I hear a cough and muttering behind me, and see Helen’s eyes shift, and I smile to myself. Because Helen might think she has more money and guns than I do, but she evidently doesn’t remember Hawke’s Wood. This is my town, and I know the people here like the back of my hand. I know these woods, and the air and sky and stars. I know exactly who I can count on.
And when I heard Taryn scream, I dialed the one number I knew would bring my people to my side.
“Brother,” Barrett says, stepping up next to me.
He has a shotgun in his hand and when I look over, I see he’s wearing his sheriff’s badge.
I smirk. “That’s overkill, don’t you think?”
He shrugs. “I figured we should at least try to make this legal.”
“Not like it would matter,” another voice says.
