19. Cassie
Cassie
Ethan's been gone since morning, some supply run with Knuckles that was only ever supposed to take a couple of hours, and I'm sitting on the back porch steps with Cam, shelling peas for tonight's dinner into a bowl balanced between us.
Easy chores still feel like small miracles some days.
I never got to do this at home and I love it. My life has gotten so ordinary.
"You're getting faster at that." Cam nods at the bowl. "Give it another month, you'll be running Sunday dinner prep single-handed."
"Don't let Rosie hear you say that. She'll actually make me do it."
Cam laughs, easy, unbothered, and it's the last easy sound either of us makes for a long while.
The fence line goes quiet in a way I don't consciously register until it's already too late.
I notice the birds have gone silent. I learned to read silence in another life, back when the quietness meant somebody was coming who wasn't supposed to be.
My whole body goes cold before my mind catches up to why.
"Cam." My voice comes out barely above a whisper. "Something's wrong."
She's already moving, faster than I've ever seen her move. She has her gun drawn from wherever she keeps it holstered under her cardigan before I've even finished the sentence, shoving me hard behind her with one arm. "Down. Now."
Piper runs out of the compound with her gun drawn. “I heard you shout ‘down.’ What’s happening, Cam?” I forgot Piper was in the military.
“There by the back fence. Three intruders.” They both turn toward the three men who are coming over the back fence in a single fluid motion.
They are professionals. Cam's already firing before the first one's boots hit the ground, catching him clean in the shoulder, spinning him sideways into the dirt.
She's fast, faster than I ever gave her credit for, ducking behind the porch rail and putting two more rounds into the second man before he can get a clean shot off.
Piper has the third man in her sight. For one wild, hopeful second I actually think we're going to be fine, that Cam and Piper are going to be enough to end this before it starts.
Then the third man's gun swings toward me, and Brick is there.
I don't see him cross the yard. One second he's nowhere, the next he's between me and the barrel of that gun, his arms spread like he can physically block a bullet through sheer force of will, and I hear Cam scream his name a half second before the first shot cracks the air.
He doesn't go down. Not yet. He staggers, absorbs it somehow, yet he’s still standing, still between me and them, and the second shot takes him square in the side, and that's the one that finally puts him on his knees.
"No." Cam's voice breaks apart completely, and I watch something in her simply stop working, her gun hand falters, a half second, less than a half second, where her whole body just refuses to process what she's seeing fast enough to act on it.
It's the only mistake she makes in the whole fight, and it's not even really a mistake, just a human being watching the man she loves take two bullets meant for someone else.
That half second is long enough.
Hands close around my arms from behind, dragging me backward, and I fight, I fight with everything two years of running taught me, my elbow connects with something solid, a grunt of pain, but it’s not enough, it’s never enough against three men who do this for a living.
I hear Piper’s gun go off, it’s wild this time, no longer aimed at anything but grief, and I hear brothers shouting from somewhere inside the clubhouse.
It’s too far, too late, boots are pounding toward a fight that's already over by the time they clear the door.
Someone covers my mouth with a cloth, it’s chemical and sharp, and the world starts sliding sideways.
The last thing I see, dragged toward the tree line with my vision already going soft at the edges, is Cam on her knees in the dirt with Brick's head cradled in her lap, both her hands pressed hard over a wound that's already soaking dark through his shirt, screaming his name like she can hold him here by volume alone.
I try to scream too. I don't know if any sound actually makes it out before the dark takes the rest of me.