Sacrifice

Tyler leaned in against the table. “What did you do?”

“He was going to kill me. So I tried to kill him first.”

Hunter finally spoke up. “Hand to hand?”

“Yeah.” He paused. He almost didn’t want to say what had happened, as if admitting it would make it more real. It was plenty real. He’d scrubbed the blood off his hands forever. He still felt like he hadn’t gotten it all. “I stabbed him. A couple of times. Broke some ribs, too.”

“Holy crap,” said Tyler. “What did you stab him with?”

Michael met his eyes. “A rock.”

“And they think he was the same guy who bombed the restaurant?” said Hunter.

Michael shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think so.”

“Interesting.” He paused, and his expression said he was working through something in his head. “If he was the kind of guy to work from a distance with a bomb, I’m surprised he confronted you in the woods like that.”

“There was a lot of smoke and fire in the underbrush,” said Michael. “Poor visibility. He was shooting at us to begin with.”

“Huh.” Hunter picked at his food again.

“What?” said Tyler.

“I don’t know. I just think people tend to fall into two camps: those who prefer to be violent from a safe distance, and those who prefer to be an active participant. My dad and uncle were opposite sides of that coin. My dad had lots of experience in hand-to-hand combat. He wouldn’t work from a distance unless he had to. He thought violence should mean something. My uncle was a cop, and he’d been trained to take care of a situation from a distance, if he could. It was a safety thing: why engage with a bad guy if you don’t have to?”

“So what’s that all mean?” said Michael.

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.” He paused. “But there wasn’t just one Guide last time, right?”

The question made Michael’s heart stop for a moment. “No. But why wouldn’t the other one step in to save the first?”

Hunter rolled that around for a long moment. “I don’t know. I can’t see any advantage to letting you leave if the first was going to kill you. Especially since the police have a body and a name and someone to investigate.”

“What was his name?” said Tyler.

“Warren Morris,” said Michael.

Tyler snorted. “He sounds like he should be preparing taxes, not walking around hunting people with a gun.”

“Maybe he does prepare taxes,” said Hunter. “He doesn’t have to be military. Guides come from all walks of life. Look at Becca’s dad. He works for the Department of Natural Resources. Not exactly the front lines of the militia.”

“So there could be another Guide in town,” said Tyler.

“Right,” said Hunter. “And it could be anyone.”

Not for the first time, Michael was glad that he didn’t know where his brothers had been taken. They were safe. Hidden.

Michael pushed his food away. He’d barely touched it, and he didn’t want it now. “There’s always a chance of a Guide being in town,” he said. “Nothing different about today.”

“You have a bigger target on your back,” said Tyler.

Michael scowled. “Nothing different about that either.”

His cell phone chimed. Michael tensed and fished it out of his pocket. Another message from Hannah.

I’m worried about you.

He didn’t respond. He hadn’t answered any of her texts since leaving his neighborhood with the fire marshal.

It was killing him.

But hearing those gunshots and knowing she was in the woods—he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t go through that again. He needed to end this. She’d never be safe while involved with him.

His thumbs hovered over the phone anyway. He wanted to reply. He wanted to invite her over. He wanted to spend one night away from fear and anger and worry, to just be a guy and a girl.

But that wasn’t possible for him.

For her either.

He shoved his phone back in his pocket.

A knock sounded on Tyler’s front door, and they were all instantly on high alert.

Tyler stood up, but Hunter put up a hand. “They could shoot you through the door.”

No one moved.

Finally, Michael stood up. “Wait. I’ll answer it.”

“It’s my house,” said Tyler.

“Yeah, but I’m the one they’ve been trying to kill.”

Tyler considered that, then stood back.

Michael stopped in front of the door. He looked through the peephole, but the person was wearing a ball cap and looking at a phone. Through the distortion of the fish-eye lens, he couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.

He held his breath and turned the dead bolt, ready for a bullet to hit him in the chest.

Nothing happened.

Then a female voice from the other side said, “Are you going to open the door or what?”

Michael opened the door. “Hannah.”

She stood there in a cap and raincoat and jeans, everything speckled with raindrops. Her eyes were red rimmed yet furious. “I don’t know whether to hit you or hug you.”

“Do both,” he said.

She did one better. She kissed him.

CHAPTER 25

Hannah hadn’t realized how much she’d missed Michael until she was pressed against him. She’d taken him by surprise with the kiss—but it wasn’t long before he caught her waist in his hands and kissed her back. She loved the way he kissed: slow and strong and sure, nothing hurried, as if he needed to memorize each moment.

Someone cleared his throat from farther back in the apartment, and Michael broke the kiss, but he only drew back a few inches. His brown eyes were close and intent on hers.

“You left that out of the options,” he said.

“My bad.” Her anger had dissipated, leaving only relief that he was safe and well and here, right in front of her.

He caught her face in his hands. His palms were warm against her cheeks, and she thought he might kiss her again.

Instead, he sighed and closed his eyes. “You need to go home,” he said, letting go of her face and taking a step back. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Talk about a one-eighty. She frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t want—” He hesitated and made a frustrated noise. He sat against the back of the couch and gripped the edge hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “I want to keep you safe, Hannah. It’s not safe for you to be around me right now.”

Her day had been too long and too intense, and she didn’t even want to attempt to make sense of that. “Why?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Her anger had burned off during their kiss—but it flared right back up again. “You can’t tell me.”

“No.” He met her eyes. “I can’t tell you.”

“Bullshit. You can’t say something like that and expect me to turn around and drive home.”

“That’s exactly what I expect,” he said. “You can’t throw a fit and expect me to explain things that are a hell of a lot bigger than just me, okay?”

“A fit? You think I’m throwing a fit?”

He inhaled like he wanted to placate her.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t bother.” She wanted to hit him. Hard. Right in the face. She knew how to throw a punch, and it would probably feel fantastic to drive her rage into something.

But she didn’t. She was bigger than that.

“Don’t talk down to me,” she said. Her hands were still in fists at her sides.

“I’m not talking down to you.” His jaw was tight, and he looked like he wouldn’t mind getting into it either. “I’m trying to protect you—”

“Screw you, Michael. You think I’m some damsel in distress? You think I want your protection? You don’t know what I can handle. You have no idea.”

“I’m not getting into a pissing match with you, Hannah.” He stepped forward, into her space. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

She didn’t back away. “I know that if you can handle it, so can I. I’m so sick of men trying to protect me for my own good. My father tells me to stay away from you, but he won’t tell me why. Irish tells the chief that I’m not fit to work a scene. Now you tell me that I have to stay away from you, because it’s just not safe. Well, that’s bullshit. I’m an adult. I’m raising a child. I’m a goddamned firefighter, Michael. You don’t know what I’ve seen. You don’t know what I’ve dealt with. And if you think that I’m the type of girl to sit in a corner and paint my nails while the big, strong men do their thing, then you’re a jackass, and I don’t know why we’re wasting our time.”

She was breathing hard. So was he.

“Talk,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Hannah.” His eyes had gone hard. “You don’t want any part of this—”

“Try me.”

He glared at her for the longest moment, until she was sure she’d pushed him too far and he was going to yell at her to get the hell out of here. Regret began elbowing its way into her thoughts. She wasn’t angry at Michael. Not really.

This rage was all about her father.

She realized she expected Michael to shove her out the door with dismissive words, the way her father would. To treat her like a little girl who couldn’t deal with the big, bad issues of the world.

But Michael straightened and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Here,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

He unlocked the screen, went to the text messages, and handed it to her.

She read the first few on the screen, and they didn’t make sense.

Right now, who is hunter, and who is prey?

Do you really think a jail cell will keep you safe? That’s funny, Michael.

As if you’d even get to a jail cell.

As if I’d let you leave this neighborhood.

The tone was chilling, even from the relative safety of a cell phone screen. Someone was stalking him? Were these messages from the man her father had killed? Why didn’t Michael want to tell her about this?

Then she stopped on the next line.

Your girlfriend is adorable how she plays fireman. Maybe I should introduce myself.

Her eyes flicked to the top of the screen to see that these texts had been sent from a random number, not from anyone in his contact list. She directed her gaze up to Michael. “Who sent these?”

“Warren Morris. The man your father shot in the woods.”

She glanced at the phone again, then back up at him. “Does my dad know about these text messages?”

“Yes.”

He put out a hand, but Hannah took a step back and held the phone out of reach, scrolling up, reading through a brief exchange. “Do you know this guy?”

“No.” He paused. “Sort of.”

“So someone has been threatening you? For how long?” Michael didn’t say anything. She glanced past him, to where Tyler and Hunter were sitting at the dining room table. “Do they know?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, so they get to be in on all the secrecy.”

“Hannah—”

She glanced at the text messages again. “Did this just start today?”

“No.” Michael took a long breath. “It’s complicated.”

“Is this related to the fires in your neighborhood?”

He hesitated. “Yes. And the restaurant bombing.”

He didn’t say anything else, but she kept looking at him expectantly. “There’s more,” she said. “I can feel it.”