Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
BECCA
“How do they look?” Myra leans back as far as she can on her stepstool, looking over the curtains I promised to help her hang in the home she shares with Simon. “Did I get all the wrinkles out?”
She’s been steaming the heck out of the things since I came over first thing after waking up, wanting to spend just a little more time with Myra while Butch loads the SUV.
I take in the way the drapes seem to soften the look of the empty room. “Should I have hung curtains in my house?”
She turns toward me, looking surprised. “You have a house?”
“Yeah. But who knows when I’ll ever be able to go back there.” I sigh. “It’s probably full of dead guys anyway.”
Myra’s shocked expression is my first hint she doesn’t know I’m joking.
“I was just kidding.” My sarcasm clearly isn’t landing, but I’m not sure how to shift the conversation, so I just keep going. “They already got all the dead guys out.”
Myra still doesn’t seem to be picking up on my dark humor. “Who pulled the dead guys out of your house?”
I close my eyes, cringing inwardly at myself as I do my best to pivot.
“It’s a long story, and it makes my head hurt.
” Or that might be eye strain from all the time I spent staring at the computer yesterday.
“I’m just glad Butch found somewhere we can lay low for a minute.
Thank you for letting us stay here.” It’s as close as I can get to a final thank you before we leave, but I want Myra to know how much I appreciate her kindness.
The way she hasn’t held my arrival here against me.
“Of course.” Myra gets off the stool, setting the handheld steamer on the curtains on the top step. “You guys can stay here as long as you want.”
“I don’t want to stay here at all.” For a number of reasons.
“I want to find my sister and go back to my life.” Except.
“But I don’t think I’ll have much of a life to go back to at this point.
I’m pretty sure I no longer have a job. And I don’t know how I’ll feel about sleeping in a house where I had to jump out of a window to escape being murdered. ”
I’m coming up on the end date of my leave of absence from work, and I don’t currently have a safe way to log in and ask to extend it. Is there the possibility I could plead my case with them when I get back? Maybe? But do I want to do that?
I don’t honestly know. I’d have to think about it.
Not right now though, because Myra gasps. “You jumped out of a window?”
I try to smother a smile, because jumping out that window was actually kind of fun. It made me feel like so much more than just a boring, weird, work-from-home introvert with no friends and a monotonous job.
“It’s actually really surprising how easy it is when you’re in danger.
It’s shocking the lengths you’ll go to in order to survive.
” I stand a little taller. “And how creative you can be when you don’t have any actual weapons.
” I’ve already come such a long way when it comes to found weapons.
No more laundry soap for me. No sir. I’ve leveled up to claw hammers.
Myra gives me a hesitant smile. “I tried to bash Butch’s head open with my nightstand drawer.”
Really? “Impressive.” My smile lifts a little. “I attempted to take out a mercenary with an economy-sized jug of laundry detergent.”
I don’t mention the hammer incident. If Myra didn’t enjoy my jokes about dead guys earlier, she sure as heck won’t respond well to finding out I killed a guy. Warranted or not.
Myra considers before saying, “You win. I’m not sure how I would handle facing down a mercenary.”
I snort, because if she can attack Butch, she can sure as hell attack one of the Alaskan Security guys.
They try to act tough, but they’re not intimidating at all.
“That word makes them sound way scarier than they are.” An unexpected pang of guilt twinges in my gut remembering how hard they worked to get me out of harm’s way the night I escaped my house.
“Actually, some of the guys were really nice. I hate that they ended up being—”
The doorbell rings, cutting our conversation short.
Myra points at me. “Put a pin in that.” She grins, heading for her front door. “It sounds like my new sofa is here. Now we’ll have somewhere to sit while we talk.”
She goes to get the door, her lyrical voice carrying down the hall. “Hey. I bet you have a couch for me.” After letting them know they’re in the right place, she asks, “Do you want to see where you’re bringing everything?”
I move toward the entry so I can see what’s going on, looking over the guys entering her house. They both stop short when they see me, giving me odd looks.
Myra steps around them, moving into the family room. She gestures to the blank wall where she’s planning to put the sofa. “I’d like the long end of the sectional right here, with the shorter portion angling over there.”
Except the movers aren’t even looking at her. They’re still weirdly focused on me.
When one of them steps my way, I instinctively back up, but my short legs don’t gain me enough space. In the blink of an eye, he’s got me. Arms pinning me to his chest, one hand slammed over my mouth, smothering out the scream I try to set free.
Myra spins to face us, her blue eyes open wide as she takes in the situation we’re facing.
The situation I brought to her doorstep.
I knew we should have left last night. That we should have turned down Simon and Myra’s offer of dinner and put as much distance between us and these kind people as possible.
But I was so excited to feel like I had friends. Like I was accepted, and maybe even liked.
She sure won’t like me now.
Myra’s panicked gaze darts around as the second man zeros in on her, his meaty hands twitching as he moves toward her. He lunges and I try to gasp, but the hand on my face is making it hard to breathe. I try to fight against his grip on me, desperate to help Myra any way I can.
Myra manages to dodge the man trying to grab her, quickly sidestepping in the direction of the step stool she’d been using to hang the curtains.
If she can just grab that stool, maybe she can—
Myra spins away as the guy attempts to grab her again, but as she rounds back to face him, she’s got something in her hands.
In a move so quick it’s hard to follow, she twists the steamer in half and flings what remains of the boiling water right in the guy's face. Then she takes off toward the front room, the cord of the steamer trailing behind her from the portion of the appliance still gripped in her hand.
I yelp when the guy holding me suddenly drops his arms, running up the hall so he can cut Myra off before she reaches the front door.
I don’t fucking think so.
I stride to the weapon she skipped, collapsing the stepstool and hefting the surprising weight of it off the floor.
I was planning to turn it like a flag so I could hit the asshole still gripping his dripping face with as much surface area as possible, but I don’t have the leverage to make it happen.
All I can do is get it up as much as I can and swing with all my might.
Butch’s words about weight and momentum come back to me as my feet start to twist without my input. I’ve got zero control over how fast the stool is going when the guy finally pulls his hands from his face and notices there’s something coming right at it.
The sound of connection isn’t as shocking this time. I’ve heard it before, so the weird crunch doesn’t activate my gag reflex quite as much as hammer head did.
My whole body jolts from the impact, making my teeth slam together and my arms vibrate so hard they ache. But I don’t have time to think too hard about it because my friend needs my help.
I run the same path the guy who grabbed me did, stepstool still tight in my grip.
My heart stops when I see her body sinking toward the floor, looking weirdly limp.
I don’t hesitate. I take another sideways swing, only this guy is a little taller than the other one, and I accidentally catch him in the neck.
Since I didn’t really stick around to see the aftermath of the last guy, I’m shocked at how the man immediately drops, his big body slumping forward and pinning Myra beneath his weight.
“Oh shit.” I drop the stool, moving closer as I try to figure out how to get to Myra. “I didn’t expect him to go down so fast.” I wince a little as my eyes land on the damage I did. “Or for his neck to end up at that weird angle.”
I breathe a sigh of relief when Myra blinks up at me, eyes rolling from me to the guy on top of her.
Bending toward her, I wrinkle my nose as I get a better look at the strange bulge poking out the side of his neck I didn’t hit. “Do you think I killed him?”
“I mean...” She starts wiggling free as I grab one arm, trying to shift his weight to help. “He sure feels like dead weight.”
“Myra.” Simon’s voice is so loud it makes me jump.
“He’s not going to be happy.” Myra shoves at the guy still on top of her. “Help me get up so Simon doesn’t have a coronary when he walks in.”
I squat, grabbing the guy’s shoulder before leaning back, putting all my weight into trying to move him as Simon’s heavy steps pound across the porch. “Pretty sure there’s no walking going on.”
Myra gets to her feet just as Simon races in. Butch is hot on his heels, and both men skid to a stop when they see us, their eyes immediately dropping to the pile at our feet.
Butch looks from Myra to me. “What the fuck just happened?”
Simon grabs Myra, pulling her against his chest.
I watch them a little closer than is probably acceptable as I start explaining. “We thought these were the movers bringing Myra’s couch, but then this guy grabbed me and the other one tried to get—”
“There’s another one?” Butch steps over the guy who fell on Myra, looking him over before asking, “Did you kill him too?”
“Well…” I’m not sure what I should admit in front of Myra and Simon. “If I did, it wasn’t on purpose. Totally.”
Butch grabs my hand before tugging me down the hall to where I left the other guy.
He stares down at bright red skin and blank, unseeing eyes, expression unreadable.
Myra and Simon enter the room behind us. Myra doesn’t seem totally traumatized as she looks over the first mess I made in her house. “You’re two for two, Bec.”
She’s not mad? Myra actually sounds relieved. Like I did the right thing by accidentally killing two men in her home.
I know I did the right thing, I just feel bad it was in her safe space. But there was no way I was going to let them hurt her. Not when it’s my fault they’re here. And there was no way I was letting them get away. Not when they might hold the key to finding my sister.
“I’m not fucking around.” I crouch down, digging into dead guy number one’s pockets.
“These pricks have my sister. I meant it when I said I was going to kill them all.” I didn’t know it at the time.
I was just saying it because it made me feel better.
Like I had some power. Like I was capable of doing whatever it might take to get Amanda.
But it seems like maybe I really am.
Pulling out his phone, I wake it up before aiming the forward facing camera at his face. When the facial recognition does its job and the screen unlocks, I shake my head. “Idiot. Shoulda used a code, jackass.”
That’s what Owen and Luca do. It ensures no one can easily access their devices in the event of their… demise.
“I’m guessing he wasn’t expecting to be boiled alive before having his neck snapped.” Butch steps in close, looking over my shoulder as I swipe across the screen.
It’s pretty basic. Not a bunch of apps or contacts, making me think it’s a burner like the phones Butch and I carry.
But then I open his camera roll, and my whole body goes cold. I slowly lift my eyes to where Myra stands, confusion and fear twisting up my insides.
“What?” She wiggles out of Simon’s grip before pushing Butch out of the way so she can see what I’m looking at.
I wish I could hide it from her. Protect her from the terror I know she’s about to experience.
Because I don’t think these guys were actually here for me after all. There’s only one photo in the camera roll and the more I look at it, the sicker I feel.
Because it’s a picture of Myra.