Chapter 11 Rosemary #3
It wasn’t as if I didn’t trust my pop. I trusted him more than any other person in the world, and I knew what he was capable of—but I also knew what his limitations were and that he’d push past them without thinking in order to protect me.
Even if things went well and we took care of the threat, it could end very poorly for my pop. I was petrified that, at the very least, if he lived through this, by the end of the night, my father wouldn’t be using the wheelchair part-time anymore.
The drive took us ten minutes. It should’ve taken closer to twenty. We passed the entrance to the property, watching for signs of sentries, before turning back around and parking in the trees across the road.
“You should post up on the hill,” I said, looking at the old sniper rifle propped up on the seat between us as he cut the truck lights. “That’ll give you the best vantage point.”
“Sure,” Pop scoffed. “I’ll let you go down to the house by yourself and cover you from a safe distance.”
“I won’t be alone,” I said as first one, then two, then three, four, five people stepped out of the trees.
“Erik fucking Boucher,” Pop said, shooting me a look.
“I figured I’d cover our bases,” I said, throwing open my door. “In case you couldn’t reach anyone.”
I hopped out of my seat and grabbed my rifles, slinging one over my back. My hands moved over my vest, checking things were where they should be by habit as I walked toward the newcomers.
I recognized Daniel’s brothers instantly. Both of the clean-cut Vampires were standing next to women who looked a little older than me. His father stepped forward, like he couldn’t stop himself, as I got closer.
“Rosemary,” he said, a smile in his voice.
“Mr. Boucher.”
“Please, call me Erik.” His eyes widened as Pop stepped up beside me. “Gary Whitlock.”
“Thanks for coming, Erik.”
“Your father is Gary Whitlock?” Erik said in what sounded like delight. “Gods.”
“Ambrose. Beau.”
“Good to see you, Gary,” Ambrose said with a nod. “This is my mate, Lucy. And that’s Beau’s mate, Reese.”
“You brought your mates,” Pop said carefully.
“We weren’t too excited for them to leave us behind again,” Reese said dryly. “Don’t worry. We’ll stay out of the way.”
“Reese is a hell of a shot,” Beau said reluctantly. “She’ll post up at a distance.”
“And I’m her security,” Lucy said proudly.
“Her spotter,” Ambrose corrected in amusement.
“Tomato, tomahto.”
“Pop’s going to be up on the hill,” I said, jerking my chin toward the high rise visible on the property across the road.
“Rosemary,” Pop snapped in warning.
“Don’t fucking start, old man,” I shot back, glaring at him.
I had three Bouchers to work with. I wasn’t above pointing out exactly why he couldn’t be down in the thick of things, and I think he knew it from the look on my face because he didn’t say anything else.
There would be hell to pay when we were finished that night, but I’d deal with that later.
Things weren’t moving quickly, and everything inside me urged me to start running for the house, but I shoved the instinct down.
If we flew in there without a plan, we wouldn’t be able to help anyone.
Whoever had broken through Uncle Dalton’s security team and made their way inside the house had to have been planning for a while.
The only comfort I had was that the safe room was nearly impossible to find unless you knew where to look, but that comfort was slowly fading away the longer those men were in the house and we were across the road.
The longer they had to look, the longer they had to find the room, and while they didn’t have a way inside, they could easily burn the place to the ground around my aunt and cousins.
I’d drawn the layout of the house on a notebook that the Bouchers had brought with us, and we contributed and discarded ideas for a solid ten minutes before I threw up my hands in frustration.
“Nothing is going to work perfectly,” I spat. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?” Beau asked flatly.
“You’re trying to minimize any risk to me,” I replied, my voice just as flat. “Which is bullshit. I know what I’m doing, and I’m as immortal as the rest of you. So stop fucking around and let’s get in there.”
“There’s no way to know if your immortality has manifested yet,” Erik warned.
“Let’s call it an educated guess, then,” I countered. “My aunt called us—” I looked at my watch. “Thirty-six minutes ago. How much longer do you think they have before those men get antsy and start blowing shit up or find the safe room and start trying to figure a way inside?”
“We’ll breach in this lower window,” Erik said after a moment. “That goes into the mudroom, correct?”
“Laundry room,” I corrected. “It’s off the mudroom.”
He nodded. “Ambrose and Beau, you’ll go in from the back. Second story, third window from the right.” He looked at me.
“There’s an old oak on the other end of the house,” I said, pointing to where it was relative to my roughly drawn house.
“If you use that to get onto the eaves, it’s an easy shot over to the window.
That goes into Ian’s bedroom apartment. He always leaves that window open because he’s a hot sleeper. ”
Beau eyed me.
“He’s my fucking cousin,” I reminded him.
Pop handed me a little pot of greasy paint. I thanked him with a nod as I opened it up and began to smear it over my cheeks.
“We’ll set Lucy and Reese up on the way through,” Ambrose said. “You’ll need to give us two or three extra minutes.”
“We can do that.”
“I’ll help my pop—”
“I think I can manage to set up,” Pop cut me off. He looked at Reese. “I’ll be on the eastern side. If at any point you think you’ve been spotted, lie flat. Don’t try to move. I’ll draw fire.”
“I can do that,” she said nervously.
“We brought Ghillie suits,” Lucy said with a nod. “We’ll be practically invisible.”
Erik tossed the notebook in the back of the truck as Pop let Thunder out of the cab, and without any more words, the seven of us split up. Erik, Pop, and I moved toward the eastern side of the property while the Boucher brothers and their mates moved to the west.
“Chance and Danny are out of communication?” Erik asked Pop.
“Went black an hour before Halle called me,” Pop confirmed.
“Any idea when they’ll come back online?”
“Another hour, maybe,” Pop replied. “Could be less depending on what they find.”
Erik hummed in acknowledgment.
“I left them a message for whenever they fire things up again.”
“Coded?” Erik asked softly.
“Yes.”
Then we were silent as we moved further onto the property.
I placed my steps carefully as I led the way. I hadn’t seen anyone in the trees, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. We just hadn’t encountered anyone yet. When we came to the place where Pop would go his own way, he set his fingertips to his lips and then brushed my cheek.
I flashed him the ASL sign for I love you.
Almost immediately, he vanished into the forest, Thunder trotting along beside him.
Erik’s hand tapped my shoulder softly to get me moving again.
The minutes ticked away like the Jeopardy theme song as we moved toward the window we’d be entering. I hated that Aunt Halle and the boys were sitting in there, probably scared out of their minds. The chance of anyone making it into the safe room was low, but it wasn’t zero.
Just as we hit the tree line, something in my peripheral vision made me sway to a stop.
A man in tactical gear picked his way through the brush just thirty feet from us.
Erik gave my biceps a quick squeeze and then disappeared from beside me. As slowly as I could, I leaned toward a tree so I’d blend into the shadow.
Seconds later, the man I’d been watching turned into a larger mass, then dropped slowly to the ground. Erik nodded at me to keep moving as soon as he rose.
Every window in the house was lit up when we reached the detached shop and moved through the shadows that various truck tires and water barrels provided us. The people inside were searching, and they weren’t bothering to conserve energy as they made their way through the house.
I was in the lead, so I was the first to see the man leaning against the shop just around the corner. His weapon was held across his chest as his eyes swept the yard.
Go time.
I held my hand up for Erik, then smoothly rounded the corner.
In the split second it took for the man to realize I wasn’t someone he recognized, I’d shoved his weapon to the side and punched him in the throat.
Unfortunately, this man seemed to be able to fight just fine without breathing, and he swung his rifle up.
By then, I was too close for him to get it between us.
I caught the barrel of the rifle in my armpit, thankful that he didn’t seem willing to let it go, and pulled the knife from the sheath on my belt.
Seconds later, I was fighting the urge to gag as I lowered him to the ground, the blood from his neck wound saturating the entire front of me.
Erik was standing just behind me when I went to look for him. His eyes searched me for wounds as I shrugged.
I may not have done it as cleanly as he would’ve, but I’d still gotten the job done—and silently, for that matter.
There was another man closer to the house that I let Erik take care of. I was still struggling to keep the whiskey in my stomach from making a reappearance. Touching the man had caused my skin to flare with the fire of a thousand hells and my pulse to pound in my temples.
I guess the mating heat didn’t differentiate between fucking or killing someone who wasn’t your mate.