Why not surprise them in the process?
With my screams, I kept them distracted. I used my hand to try to find something to hit them with. I reached out, trying to grab something, anything, and when I felt a rock, I grabbed it and slammed it against Dean’s head, knocking him backward. In the process, he dropped the knife. Before Daniel could get it, I had it within my grasp and I got to my feet, glaring at them.
“I bet you weren’t expecting that.”
I felt the blood from my wounds dripping down my flesh. It made me want to vomit, but somehow, I kept it all inside and glared at both of them.
I waited. Desperate for one or more of them to attack me.
Daniel came in first, but I was no match for him. I was able to swipe him with the blade, but as I went left, he moved right, grabbing me around the waist. His grip was too tight, and Dean came at me, backhanding me as he took the knife from me. Before I knew what was happening, he’d stabbed me in the shoulder.
I yelled.
If anyone was near, they had to have heard it.
He pulled the blade out and Daniel tossed me to the floor, kicking me in the back. I tried to scramble away, but he grabbed me by my hair, pulling my head back. “I don’t mind fucking a corpse,” he said.
He tilted my head back more and Dean handed him the blade. It came close to my neck and then a gun went off. The blade dropped down to the ground, and me along with it. I shivered as the sudden cold filled the room.
I didn’t exactly know what happened next as warmth surrounded me.
After everything I’d just been through, I closed my eyes for only a moment, but when I opened them again, I saw the sky.
Was I dead?
I didn’t know.
It was okay to close my eyes.
To go to sleep.
The pain would kill me soon.
****
Gael
I sat in our woman’s private hospital room.
She’d lost a great deal of blood.
For at least an hour, my dad and Caleb’s dad had been beating her, hurting her. She had bruises, missing clumps of hair, and knife wounds.
Caleb and Earl had gotten to her first. Leaning forward, I put my elbows on my knees and prayed. That was all I did. I didn’t know if anyone listened, but I hoped they wouldn’t take our woman away.
I couldn’t stand it.
Drake was in the other room. We’d tracked him through the GPS on his cell phone to a bar in town. Our dads’ final contacts were waiting. They’d beaten him up good. He’d been strung up and used as a piñata.
He had internal bleeding and so far, he hadn’t regained consciousness.
There was a time I didn’t think I could trust him, but now, I knew without a doubt, he was loyal to us. We would take care of him.
He’d never be a Monster, but he was family.
“Any change?” Vadik asked, handing me a coffee.
“No.”
“Ashley’s been given a sedative,” River said, coming into the room. “She can’t handle this at the moment. She feels responsible because she didn’t tell Emily to wait to speak to us.” He ran a hand down his face. “How is she?”
“No change,” I said. “Is Caleb dealing with the paperwork?”
“Yep,” Vadik said. “They always want to make sure they get their money, don’t they?”
“Do you think she’s going to want to stick around and marry us?” I asked. I didn’t want to speak the words out loud, but I didn’t know what else to say. I loved my woman more than anything. Had been in love with her all this time. I knew to the outside world, this was fucked up and there was no way it could work, but I said fuck them. They didn’t know us. They didn’t know what we were capable of. If I said we could make this work, then that was exactly what we were going to do. No one could stop us.
Emily belonged to us.
“I hope so,” Vadik said. “She knows how we feel about her. That’s never going to change. We all love her.”
“And our dads are out of the way. The threat to her life is over.”
“The threat in Crude Hill never ceases.”
“No, but it doesn’t matter where she goes, does it? We’re the ones who love her. Everyone else, they couldn’t protect her like we do.”
I wanted to dispute River. We hadn’t exactly done a good