like this?”
“Shane, that is so not important right now. As I recall, those things rattle before they attack.” In other words, she was telling him to stop talking and start acting now because that thing was definitely shaking its tail.
He could check the video footage later and see if he could make anything out of the images. Even if the guy had been wearing a mask he could at least pin down height, weight and build to narrow down his search. “I can’t shoot it; I’ll hit you.”
“If you don’t shoot it, it will bite me.” She said in a tone that told him she thought being shot accidently was the lesser of two evils here.
“Damn,” he cursed low and furious. “I can’t shoot you, baby. I might kill you.” She was small and while she had muscle mass he doubted it would stop a bullet from ricocheting its way through her body.
“So will it,” she said in a harsh whisper. “I’ll take my chance with a bullet.”
“I can’t,” he felt his heart racing. He didn’t want to risk it, but he knew he had to do something.
“I’ve got this,” Leo bent down, pulled his pants leg up just enough to expose the steel blade strapped to his lower leg. He removed it slowly, cautiously, as if trying not to jar the snake into a faster attack. “Valencia insisted I bring this,” he mumbled before taking aim.
“Don’t hit Alyssa,” Shane felt compelled to say.
“I’ve got this, Shane. Settle down.” He aimed and threw the blade just as the snake’s head was poised and ready to take the strike. It dropped, so easily as if it had just decided to back down when in reality it was dead—or dying, either way it wasn’t going to get his woman.
Shane rushed over to her. “Careful,” she had said as he got closer to the area where the snake was. “I’ve got you,” he whispered before coming behind her chair and lifting it, so effortlessly, and moving her away from the snake.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” she gasped.
“You’re light weight,” he assured her.
“Can you get these things off of me, please?”
Leo went to her kitchen and grabbed two knives before coming over to them and handing Shane one of them. Together, they managed to get her out of her bindings. She was shaking, trembling with fear, and unshed tears were making the blue of her eyes shimmer like a crystal clear lake. She was stubborn. She refused to show her emotions right now, even when Shane pulled her up into his arms, felt her trembling body resting against his own, she didn’t cry. His heart was pounding against his chest hard, furious, angrily drumming a beat that drowned out the sounds in the apartment until all he heard was the deafening rage growing in his heart. “When I find the bastard who did this,” he growled low. “He’s going to die.”
“He had to have some military training, Shane. One of the moves he tried on me was one Gavin taught me years ago. He learned it doing his training. I never really got how to get out of it without opening myself up to another attack, though,” she sighed as she pulled back from him. He could have killed me outside; why didn’t he? Why do it like this?”
“It’s him,” Shane growled. “It has to be him.”
“Now don’t jump to conclusions, Shane. It could be any whacko with some military experience. Or anybody who picked it up from somebody. What do I know? That move could be everywhere by now.”
“No; it’s him. I know he’s here.”
“Why would he come after me? I wasn’t a member of your team.”
“Does this have anything to do with your friend who just got killed?” Leo broke their moment for two, and Shane could tell the man was already getting into hunter mode. This wasn’t his fight. He was on vacation and he deserved to enjoy it. After the year his squad had just had the man deserved some time off.
“This doesn’t concern you, Leo. Stick to your vacation and I’ll handle my own demons.”
“The hell you will. You saved my life in Oahu, Shane. You stopped a man from putting a bullet in my head while I was trying to diffuse a bomb and I won’t ever forget that. Somebody comes after you and they deal with both of us.”
Shane could stand there and argue all day, but it wouldn’t change things. Leo was a man