Phone service is for shit out here, but lucky for me, my time in the military has taught me how to live off the grid. My SAT phone got me what I wanted and within fifteen minutes a sheriff’s car pulled up, lights blaring, wheels squealing.

He couldn’t have been too far when I made the call thank fuck. I was already over this shit. My senses were tingling like a son of a bitch the whole time she was cowering beside me.

For some fucked up reason I wanted to comfort her, but every green recruit knows you never take your eyes off the enemy, not even for a split second. That’s how the fuck you get dead.

So I really appreciated the law getting here in half the time it would usually take. In that time she’d almost lost her shit each time one of the other two moved an inch and I eventually pushed her behind me so she didn’t have to see them.

I don’t know how she could see shit out here. The one available light was covered in about fifty years worth of dust and was a dull sickly yellow. Not even the damn bugs went anywhere near that shit. That was probably half their ancestors stuck up there.

The sky was a deep velvet blue with just a faint light from the quarter moon that was hidden behind the tall as fuck trees that ran deep into the woods.

I hadn’t said a word since I got off the phone. Just kept my gun trained on the two with my trigger finger getting twitchy with each second that went by.

“Braden what you got?” Sheriff Wyatt Scott climbed out of his official vehicle and made his way towards me with one look over his shoulder at the two would be criminals.

I moved out of the way so he could see the little princess hiding behind me. She was coherent enough to give him a statement. I guess she’d got her shit together.

Her spiel amounted to, she went to a party with friends got a little too shot happy and decided to leave early. That’s when these two decided to move in like a cheetah on the ass of a gazelle.

The deputies that showed up after my brother the sheriff cuffed them, and Wyatt walked her to his car while calling her parents. “Braden you gonna come down and give us a statement?”

“Yeah whatever.” Fuck this shit. I headed back the way I came already pissed the fuck off. Half an hour down the mountain and half an hour back was not part of my plans for the day.

That’s what I get for putting my nose where it doesn’t belong. You can’t even help someone without having to go through this shit. I bitched my way through the woods mad as hell that I’d left my damn porch.

I went back to my cabin and changed into people clothes. A white Henley and jeans with tan mountain climbers. I ran my hand over my early morning shadow and decided to forego the razor.

The fuck am I cleaning up for? My mind wanted to shift left but I pulled that shit back front and

center. I don’t have time for that bullshit.

I gave my wild as fuck hair a look in the mirror and decided, that since I wasn’t headed to anybody’s runway I didn’t give a fuck.

I got into my truck and peeled out of the gravel driveway in front of my place and drove along the manmade lake that ran the front of my property.

My worthless ass dog heard the engine and came bounding out of the neighbor’s backyard. I slowed down long enough for him to jump into the bed of the truck before racing off into the night, headed for the damn city.

Once at the station I looked around for my little brother and grunted at the people who hailed me. The desk clerk sent me back where my brother was waiting in his office.

I saw the princess in a room with two very well dressed middle-aged people who were fawning over her like somebody had gutted her and left her for dead.

If you’d keep her little ass home where she belong she wouldn’t be out being hunted by assholes in the fucking woods.

Kid can’t be more than sixteen, fuck she doing drinking? I dismissed them and carried on. The sooner I get the hell outta here the better.

Place gives me the creeps. Not because it’s the sheriff’s station, but more because there were people here. The fuck! I have a strong aversion to anything with a heartbeat that don’t walk on four legs. Fucking humans!

I knocked on my brother’s office door before turning the knob and walking in. “Good you’re here. I was afraid I’d have to send Eddie or one of the others out after you.”

Still a little pain in the ass! Dad should’ve emptied that one in the toilet, save me years of headaches.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d tell the residents of your little town to keep their shit within town limits.”

“I’m tired of saving their ass and even more tired of having to come down here behind their shit.” He just laughed me off and went back to reading over whatever he was looking at.

I told him what I heard and saw and wanted to get the fuck out. “You got what you need? I’ve been here way too long.” I was getting a little itchy around the collar and that feeling from before was now as persistent as a sore tooth.

He nodded and started to say something, which I was sure was an invitation to dinner from his wife. I declined before he could ask and walked out of the room beating feet for the exit door.

“That’s him daddy, that’s the man who saved me.” Fuck I am. I moved even faster towards the exit but the man caught up to me. “Sir, sir…” I gritted my teeth as my hand reached for the door.

The only thing that stopped me was that feeling that I’d felt for the first time tonight just after her first scream, the feeling that refuses to leave me the fuck alone. Fucking instincts will get me every time.

I scanned her quickly as I turned to face her old man. No fucking way this shit could be about her, too young and so not my type. And if it was some kind of warning signal that she was in danger, that shit is not my problem.

“I just wanted to say thanks for saving my little girl.” He looked close to tears. No wonder she was out there getting her ass thrown around, what the fuck was this one crying about? Man the fuck up and grow a pair.

Put her little drunk ass in shackles somewhere in your damn house and keep her from being a damn menace so innocent people don’t have to save her ass from assholes in the middle of the damn night. Did this fucker just sniffle?

I almost barked out an order for him to man the fuck up, but I reminded myself that he wasn’t one of my recruits. Instead I gritted my teeth and nodded my head. Don’t say shit Braden it’s none of your business how this man raise his kid.

“It’s not a problem, I’m just glad that she’s okay.” I grumbled some shit under my breath that was not fit for company and since this neglectful fuck hadn’t done anything to me personally, he wasn’t deserving of.

I started to turn away again but the woman stopped me this time. “Please, you must let us thank you.”

“No need!” For fuck sake let me go.

“Who are you, sir?” Any second now this fuck is gonna invite me to Sunday dinner.

“This is my brother Mr. Sedgwick.” My nosy ass brother came out of his office and met us at the door. I glared at him and moved to open the door again but he gave me that disappointed little brother look. Fuck! Asshole.

I stayed put and promised myself to put my foot up his ass first chance I get. He knows damn good and well how much I hate shit like this. And these two did not disappoint.

They fell all over their faces trying to thank me when all the while I was biting my tongue not to tell them what I really thought of them.

It’s not like I’m politically correct or any of that horseshit people throw around to keep their asses lying. I’ve never had that problem, never cared too much what anyone else thought so I don’t really give a fuck.

But though I think they should keep a better watch over their kid so people don’t have to save her ass, I wasn’t in the mood for a discussion. And I needed to get the fuck away from her and this feeling.