13. Archer
Archer
Nothing can take me away.
No, nothing could take me away from Eve. But I hadn't counted on someone stealing Eve away from me.
Fuck.
My footsteps quickened as I jogged toward the cabin in a crouch. Lights blared from every window, the curtains I’d left open giving me a view of a body moving within.
Please let her have gone there to prepare for me.
I still didn’t walk up to the front door and knock.
Honey, I’m home. How are you doing? Being tortured and kidnapped like last year?
That’s how tonight plated out. I knew I wasn’t wrong.
I circled the cabin, keeping my steps light and quiet. The snow didn’t help but the slush did and so I kept to the shitty parts that let me creep up on the space where I knew my girl was.
“Here, and here, and here. That’s right, isn’t it, sweetie?” A male voice filtered through the night. Muted, but loud enough in the silence.
Cooing, like a lover.
He’s fucking cooing at her.
“And here….no, you stay still now. No…shhh. Shhh, I said. Fuck.” Something crashed over, the sound giving me an opportunity to risk the creaky steps to the short veranda.
I glanced through the window as I passed, but the dark head that obscured my view of whoever else was in the cabin gave me plenty of information.
Tall, dark, heavy set.
We had one ranch hand that fit that description. I didn’t need to see his face to know who I was dealing with.
Odin.
The ranch hand who gave Will so much grief. I almost wished it was Joe Brunel. That would have been a whole lot more satisfying.
A whimper froze me where I stood before the door.
“I said hush, sweetie. That’s it. We aren’t anywhere near done. You hush and we keep going.”
I breathed in and turned the handle on the old door. One way, and it creaked like fuck. The other way… Not so much.
Righty tighty, lefty loosey.
I just had to pick the correct direction.
Right, and the handle started to stick. Left it is.
I twisted and let the door crack the finest amount, shouldering the weapon. My boot kicked the door inward as I cocked Eve’s gun, sighting it.
It didn’t take more than a fraction of a second to register my girl curled in a ball with red streaks decorating her arms in a cruel parody of Christmas tinsel and Odin looming over her with a knife that flashed in the light.
It didn’t take me more than a fraction of a second for twenty years of training to kick in and for my finger to feather the trigger.
Just once.
And it only took a second for his body to fall.
The sound of the shot echoed off the mountain long after Odin created his own Christmas decorations on the cabin floor.
But for the first time in twenty years, I didn’t announce my presence before I took the shot.
I wasn't a Ranger any more.
“We’re gonna burn this fucking cabin to the ground, I grate out as I laid the rifle on the sofa beside Eve, peeling her hands from her face. “Fuck, kitten. I wasn’t there for you.”
Tears streaked her face, mingling with red. I stroked her skin that appeared undamaged, thank fuck. But her arms…those were sliced up. I cradled her top me, cautious of the damage to her as I pulled my phone out and pressed call.
“You have her?” Travis’s voice was frantic.
“Cabin. Get me a fucking ambulance. Again,” I gritted out.
“Yes, sir.” He hung up.
I kissed the top of Eve’s head whispering soft things to her. “I’m so sorry, Eve. Fuck, I should have seen it.”
“What, that your other girlfriend would be a decoy for Simon Haldon’s brother?” she sniffled as she looked up at me through a fresh sheen of tears. “That’s some utter bullshit right there, Ranger.”
“Not a Ranger anymore< eve. I’m just yours.”
She closed her eyes and rested against me, letting me hold her until the light around us changed to flashing ones I thought I’d escaped forever.
“I know," she whispered.