“Are you brother and sister?” I asked, moving them toward the window, keeping my back to the door in case Nathem came looking for me. I’d already been in here too long, and there was protocol when it involved unmarked kids.
If my authorities found them, they would take the boy underground and transform him into a runner, a weapon, or just dead. And the girl, she’d have it worse. She would be sent to one of Marianne’s brothels until she was old enough to take part or die from an overdose.
“No,” the boy snapped, staring straight into my soul. “But we don’t leave each other.”
He growled it like a threat, and it made me smile.Damn right, you never leave each other. I mean, unless your name is Daphne and you are in fucking Maine.
“Good.” I shoved all the cash in my pocket into his hands and curled his fingers around it. The way his eyes bugged made the twisted shit near my heart pang. “When the police come, say you’re family. You’ll have a better chance of staying together that way,” I instructed. “Foster care is shit, but all you have to do is survive until you find a way out.”
I smashed the window with my elbow and cleared the shards with my gun. “Find people. Eat something. Tell them nothing about me. Got it?”
They nodded.
Bang.
I pointed to the exit, but they didn’t move.
“Listen to me, Asher. If they catch you in here, they’ll take you from her,” I snarled, stepping closer. “Is that what you want?”
The poor guy was on the brink of pissing his pants when the girl reached for his hand, smiling that soft, brave smile I knew too well.
Suddenly, I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“Run,” I ordered when the sound of footsteps thundered from behind, and the room shook.Or maybe that was me.
“For fuck’s sake,” I growled. “GO!”
They tumbled out the window on top of each other, their bare feet slapping the pavement in a scurried sprint. I didn’t know if they’d made it, but I spun and fired two shots into the air, then barreled for the door.
“Clear?” Nathem asked when I nearly tore it off the hinges. He was standing so close we could have kissed, one foot already in the room.
“Yeah,” I swallowed, pushing past him and taking his shoulder with me. His eyes did not need to linger, and I could tell he was assessing me.
“What the hell?” Nathem’s accent cut through when we clocked Jessie kneeling over Blade, who was lying on the floor near the front of the house.
“Get Wolfe,” I ordered, and Nathem bolted into the kitchen.
“Blade was hit,” Jessie cried out, his black gloves covered in dark red. “In the leg. I think he’ll be okay, but…”
“I’m fine,” Blade gurgled. “Just… hurts like hell.”
Don’t get me wrong, Blade was family, but my brain couldn’t process what it was seeing. The room at the end of the hall burned behind my eyes like a neon wound, turning everything bright and dark at the same time.
“Shit,” Wolfe blinked, dropping to his knees in calculated shock. “What the hell happened?”
“We had a crawler,” Jessie laughed, easing the tension. If I had a dollar for every time the men in the house played Call of Duty, I’d be a king.
“Fuck yeah, we did,” Blade joked, already fading behind the mask suffocating him from the inside out. “It is kind of cold in here…” There was a break in his throat. “Don’t you think?”
“I tied his leg to stop the bleeding,” Jessie explained, hauling Blade up as Nathem grabbed his feet. “But we need to get him to the doc.”
Wolfe eyed me the way he always did right before I was about to lose my shit. How that man came to know me so well only burned me deeper. Or usually did. Everything was numb.
“Threx!” Wolfe snapped, and I blinked, realizing I was staring at the back of the house before I turned to meet him, moving in slow motion out the door.
“Are you okay?” he barked again, but I did not answer. His words were lazy writing at best. “Fine. Just get in the car,” Wolfe ordered, shoving Blade into the backseat by his boots. “Nathem, call cleanup and tell them to come down here and scrub Blade’s blood off the floor. No traces! Fucking hell.”
Wolfe hated messes, especially ones that pointed to him.