“No? What about these? Boys.”
All the men draw their knives now, looking like seven glinting shards of ice in the snowy landscape.
Something within me freezes when I spot Fiona walking up behind her dad, her mouth hanging open.
She heard it all.
Saul called me his woman.
Fiona knows.
I came out here to run away from telling her and now she knows and now something terrible might happen.
“Please,” I say, making my voice loud. “Just stop this now. It’s so senseless.”
“Shut up, cunt,” Jett roars, wheeling on me with the knife.
I step back with a cry.
But Saul throws himself into the middle of the men with no regard for his own safety.
They fall on him with their knives, but Saul moves like a shadow, insanely fast and fluid for a man his size. He ducks sideways and then comes up with an uppercut that snaps Jett’s head back, causing him to slip on the ice and land with a bony crack.
Saul spins away, fists raised, judging his timing as three men bulrush him.
He faints to one side, causing one of the men to bring his knife up.
And then he ducks low and slams him in the ribs so hard I’m sure I hear bone crack.
Whish-whish, the knives hiss in the air, just shy of Saul’s face as he ducks backward in a boxing stance.
“Tsk, tsk,” Saul grunts, letting out short puffs of air with each devastating strike.
Each man is big and strong looking, some of them just as tall as Saul, and yet he dances around them like a savage whirl of violence.
He grabs one man’s wrist and snaps it upward.
The knife drops and Saul catches it—only to toss it away, skidding metallically on the concrete.
I back up until I’m standing with Fiona.
She must have walked around the fight to get to me, and now we grip onto each other, too frozen to do anything.
“The cops,” I gasp. “We need to call the cops.”
“Right,” Fiona says, snapping from her daze and taking out her cellphone.
I can’t help but wonder if her daze comes from the fight or from what she just overheard.
She knows, she knows.
Saul has disarmed all the men now, impossibly, his chest rising and falling as he stands over them, fists clenched, face a picture of rage-filled concentration.
“Are we done?” he snarls, staring the men down.
Jett is the first one on his feet, clutching at his face. “Brokemyfuckingjaw,” he whines.
“I’ll do worse if you don’t apologize to my woman,” he snarls.
Even as his words make my chest flutter, I can’t help but feel Fiona tense up beside me.
This isn’t how I wanted you to find out.
Jett laughs, but then Saul takes a step forward, and suddenly the man’s blubbering. It’s hard to make out his exact words through his broken jaw, but the general gist is clear enough as he whines out his apology.
Saul looks at me, as though if I gave the order my man – my warrior – would charge in there and finish him off.
“You better be sorry,” I can’t help but hiss. “Anybody who’d hurt an animal deserves worse than what Flame just gave you.”
Ah, crap. Flame. I called him Flame.
Saul takes a step forward. “Alright, then? We’re fucking done here. And by the way, this diner may be a little rundown, but it’s got security cameras, assholes. You just pulled a deadly weapon in public. And you’ve got criminal records. So, basically, you’re all fucked.”Chapter TwentySaulWe all sit in the main living room, Jasper curled up in front of the crackling fire as our hot cocoas sit ignored on the table, there steam making wisps curl in the air. We’re all tired from the police station, from the long process of giving our statements, and now it’s late and we sit in an uneasy silence.
Fiona knows.
I can tell by the way she glances at us, a pinched expression on her face, that same hurt quality in her eyes I remember so well from when her mother walked out on us.
I exchange a look with Sadie, looking like a Viking queen swaddled in a blanket, only her head poking out of the top, her hair spilling down to her shoulders. But I can see her hands worrying at each other beneath the blanket.
“So,” I say at length, the first word spoken since we all sat down.
“So,” Fiona murmurs.
“I guess we need to talk this out,” I venture.
“Yeah,” Fiona says, glancing up at me briefly, and then at Sadie.
“The first thing I want you to know, Fi, jeez … Just that I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry for sneaking around behind your back. I didn’t expect any of this to happen. It just – I know how crazy this sounds – but it just happened. It was like we had no control over it. It was like fate or destiny—God, that sounds cheesy, doesn’t it?” Sadie says.