I nod, my jaw tight.
“Should we answer?” she asks.
We have a plan in place for this, though hardly anyone knocks on doors anymore. Sometimes, though, it’s the termite inspectors or landlord or someone else important. Crystal never opens the door when I’m not home. If I’m home, and it’s daytime, we can open the door. We have a code phrase in case it’s someone suspicious.
But it’s already past dark, and no one should be knocking right now. Especially not someone persistent enough to knock again, this time harder than the first time. My heart picks up speed.
I shake my head at Crystal, edging down the hallway toward the safe. We keep it near the front door, and there’s a reason for that. I crouch and quickly put in the combination.
“Give me the pistol,” she whispers.
I quickly load it and hand it to her. She holds it pointed at the floor and takes off the safety. She’d never even held a gun before we moved here, but then, there was a lot of things her family never let her do, like driving a car and falling in love. Now, she’s as good a shot as I am, and I grew up in Arkansas. I learned to shoot before I learned to throw a football.
The knock comes again, this time at the back door. A quiet little wail comes from the crib down the hall, and I want to shoot the bastard just for waking the baby. She’s just getting started. Pretty soon, the neighbors will take care of this asshole for me.
“Watch the nursery,” I tell Crystal while I quickly load my own weapon. I close the safe and turn to the back door.
“I know you’re in there,” calls a deep voice from the back door. “Open the door, Devlin.”
My whole body freezes. Crystal’s eyes go wide, and she shakes her head. “I’m coming with you,” she says. “I’ve got your back.”
I’ve played this scene in my head a thousand times over the past three years. Some part of me always knew it was coming. We have every scenario planned, from what happens if one of us dies, to both of us, to if we kill whoever comes. But it never felt entirely real until this moment.
I grab Crystal, pulling her in and kissing her hard on the mouth, knowing it could be the last time.
“No,” I say, letting her go at last, when someone pounds on the front door again. “They won’t hurt you if you let them take me. Go into the nursery and don’t use the gun unless they try to hurt one of you.”
“Devlin Darling and Crystal Dolce, get your asses out here,” the voice outside booms again. They’ve just blown our cover, that’s for damn sure. Even if the neighbors think they’re at the wrong house, we can’t risk it. If we make it out alive, we’ll have to move to a new state, change our names again, start all over.
The high-pitched wails have risen in volume, but they’re only halfway to maximum. Whoever’s at the door must hear them, though. They know we wouldn’t leave a baby alone. And it’s not some random person here to sell something. They know who we are.
They found us.
We had three good years though. In truth, it’s three years longer than I expected, than I had any right to ask for. But it’s a hundred years less than I wanted.
I kiss Crystal one more time. I can feel her shaking as she holds onto me, and I want to shoot through the door and kill them all just for scaring my girl that way.
Instead, I gently tug her arms from around my neck and press my lips to her forehead. “Take good care of yourself.”
I move to the door, edging along the wall and then pushing aside the edge of the curtain over the small window at the top. There’s a girl standing on the porch, one I’ve never seen before. Whoever was yelling must have gone around the back again. I don’t know how many they brought, though.
“Who is it?” Crystal whispers.
Of course she didn’t do what I fucking told her to. She’s at my back, her gun drawn, ready to go down in a blaze of glory with me. By now I should know better than to think she’d do anything less.
“I don’t know,” I tell her.
A sharp whistle sounds outside, and I disengage the locks except for the chain, easing the door open.
“We’re armed,” I say, pushing the muzzle of the gun through the crack so she can see I’m not bullshitting. “What do you want? Name the amount he’s paying, and we’ll double it.”
We thought they stopped looking, but maybe not. Maybe they’ve had bounty hunters and private investigators crawling the country all this time. But those people work for a living, and if I can pay to shut them up, I’ll do that before I kill them.
“What?” the girl demands. “I’m not here for money.”
I hear another set of footsteps on the porch, soft and quick and familiar.
“Devlin, what the fuck,” comes a voice from the past, one I recognize all too well now that he’s not yelling.