“Ow,” I rasp out.
Those blue eyes go stone-cold.
“Am I doing better now?” he mocks.
“B plus for effort,” I slur around my swelling lower lip. “But I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. What treasure? Someone forget to tell you Talk Like a Pirate Day is in September?”
From the back of the cluster, that snicker comes again. “Think you hit her too hard. She’s talking crazy.”
“You’re talking crazy,” I spit back, thrashing against the hands holding me down, squirming my body against the barn wall. “Look at you. Ten men against one little girl, and you’ve got me pinned down while you yack about some treasure? You call yourselves adults?”
I know.
I know.
My smart mouth is about to get me killed, probably.
Never let it be said I didn’t go out brutally defiant.
These losers don’t scare me.
Not until Blue Eyes stares at me flatly and says, “I’m done playing games. You know what we’re talking about, girl. You know about the ghost town. You know about the antiques. We know about the dead fuckin’ body.” I can see his mouth moving under the mask in an ugly sneer. “So unless you want an anonymous tip to the cops about a real nasty murder…you might want to start talking.”
The sarcastic retort on my tongue just dies.
Holy hell.
I’m about to be sick, but I’m still not petrified by these devils.
I muster up a smile, baring my bloody teeth, and spit as hard as I can.
Right in old Blue Eyes’ face again.
He was nice enough to get my mouth all messy, so he’ll reap the rewards.
This time I hit him right in the opening of the mask. He jerks back, closing his eyes, and takes a deep breath. For a minute his hand loosens on my neck.
Time to risk a concussion.
I snap my head forward, ramming my temple into his like a bowling ball.
If he wants whatever he’s after, he’s gonna hurt for it, and hurt good.
Roaring, he staggers back, clutching his head and letting me go.
The other men jerk in surprise, enough that their hold weakens, and I start kicking and thrashing again, squirming, dropping down into a tangle of legs.
For a split second, I think I actually see sweet freedom.
The tiniest sliver of space between their milling bodies.
I dive for it.
Only for that blue-eyed dick to shoulder me to the ground, hitting me in the gut so hard I’m instantly winded.
He slams me down like a rock. Pain rattles through my bones as I hit the ground with bruising force, and he tumbles down on top of me.
“You wanna play rough, dummy?” he snarls. “Because I can get real rough and real ugly, if you don’t want to start talki—”
An engine noise cuts him off.
Headlights sweep over us a second later.
His head jerks up just as a gunshot rips through the air, loud and deadly and sharp.
I manage to get a glimpse of a truck I don’t recognize, or maybe it just doesn’t look like a truck to me when I’m seeing double and triple and a few colors I don’t think actually exist in the visible light spectrum.
I recognize the man standing next to it, though.
I’d know Holt Silverton anywhere.
Even in the dark, even with a probable concussion and the wind knocked out of me, I see him.
Colt held high, his jaw set tight, and absolute murder in those devil-yellow eyes.
If there was ever a spitting image of a modern knight, it’s here, him glowing like a savage ghost under the moonlight.
“You’re gonna want to think real fuckin’ hard about what you’re doing right now, boys,” Holt drawls, that Heart’s Edge country twang coming out in his voice hard when he’s angry. “’Cause I don’t see a single guy here with a gun but me.”
He grins, then dips to pick something up off the ground.
My shotgun.
So now he’s double-armed, smirking like the cocky fiend he is.
“Now I’ve got two. Who wants to play?”
Oh. My. God.
I’ve never been so happy to see someone in my life.
I must be the only one.
Those creeps scatter like panicked chickens.
Leaving me groaning alone on the ground—and covering my head when Holt fires one more warning shot.
You never know where that bullet’s coming down.
I guess they’re thinking the same thing. They get moving quick, shouting at each other to go go go and suddenly I hear truck doors slamming and engines grinding and tires screeching, kicking up mud.
Two against ten doesn’t seem like fair odds anymore.
And when Holt fires a parting shot after them, scattering buckshot from my rifle, that gets them moving even faster—and I think I hear a tire puncture, too.
Good!
Holt stands tall until the last of them peels away. Then he holsters his Colt with a sharp look over his shoulder, vaulting the fence to race to my side.
He drops down on one knee, setting the shotgun down and touching my cheek, concern darkening his features. “Fuck, Libby, what’d they do to you?”