by Jadyn Chase
I lowered my voice to a menacing growl. “Get out of my way, Pop. I’m going and you can’t stop me.”
“I’m not trying to stop you, son, but we have to do this right. If you go in there with guns blazing, they’ll burn you to the ground. You can’t stand up to the Lynches on your own. We’re coming with you.”
I rounded on him, too mad to think straight. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. I told you we would protect her if she became one of us, and now she is. Picking a bar fight with you was one thing. Kidnapping one of our own is a blatant act of war. We’ll all go with you and blast them to kingdom come.”
I scanned the ring of faces. Everyone I ever cared about looked back at me with the same unbending intent. They were all with me. I took a deep breath. “All right. Let’s go.”
The next minute, the whole place exploded in activity. Men ran in all directions. Weapons came out of the woodwork. Luka strutted through the turmoil and barked orders at everyone. “Get those trucks out of the barn. Stack those loaded rifles into the back, Wyatt. Get inside, Liam, and tell your Ma and Lucy to arm up. There won’t be enough men left to guard the place. We need every available hand.”
A truck burned up next to me and the door flopped open. Liam waved to me from behind the wheel. “Get in.”
I slid into the seat and Ezra crammed in next to me. His enormous shoulders took up most of the cab, but between him and Liam, I wouldn’t want to be going to war between anyone else.
A long line of trucks convoyed down the driveway. Just before we left, my sister Lucy ran out of the house. She got to the gate as we rolled through it. She propped a shotgun on one shoulder and waved to us. Then she closed and locked the gate behind us.
The trucks rumbled down the Ridge and hit the main highway. We motored through the woods until we reached Jacks River Fields campground. Pop leaned out of the leading truck and circled his forefinger in the air. All the drivers parked their vehicles in the deep brush.
Ezra jumped out, and Liam and I followed. From the back, Wyatt handed us all more guns than we could carry. I shoved two semi-automatic handguns into my waistband and another into my boot. Then I took a shotgun and slung a high-powered rifle over my shoulder. Men armed up all around me. They packed their pockets with loaded clips and boxes of cartridges.
“Now, listen up, all of you,” Pop announced. “I want you to spread out along the contour of the hill here. Put plenty of space between you so they don’t see us coming. We’ll rendezvous on that rocky top over there and we’ll see what’s what. I don’t want anybody playing Rambo or stepping out of line, and that means you, Kylen. Got it?”
I bit my lip and nodded. “You got it, Pop. I’ll be a model citizen.”
He snorted to himself and set off. In a matter of minutes, I could only see Liam on my right and Ezra on my left. All the others blended into the forest. They walked so softly no one would ever know they were there.
We trailed through the woods darkening with dusk. I drove to the Watering Hole at sunset. Now I could barely see my hand in front of my face, but I already knew where I was and where I was going. I knew these woods like the back of my hand.
We climbed up the rock. Pop’s outline showed black and distinct against the starry horizon. He flattened himself on his stomach and peered into the dark through his night-vision binoculars.
“Do you see anything, Pop?” Liam asked.
“I see plenty,” he growled. “The place is crawling with them.”
“How many?” I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to go in there and start busting heads.
“Looks like about twenty,” he remarked.
“Can you see where they’re keeping Hannah?” I asked.
“I can see a few heat signatures on the guard towers. Wyatt can take them out with night-vision sniper fire.”
A low chuckle drifted out of the dark. “I’m your man.”
“I can see about seven or eight guards patrolling the compound. They’ll be more difficult. The minute they realize something’s wrong, they’ll shift and it’s all on.”
I started to rise. “Let’s go.”
His fingers clamped on my arm. “Get down, you. You’re not going anywhere without my say-so. There are ten more heat signatures in what looks like a bunk room or longhouse. I can’t tell from here if any of them are female, but I don’t see any alone by themselves. We can’t know where they’re keeping her, but I’d say she’s in the longhouse surrounded by people.”
“What about Everett?” I ground my teeth at the mention of his name. “Is he messing with her in any way?”
“Cool your jets, son,” he murmured. “No one is doing anything to anyone. Wyatt, you stay here and set up to take out the guards. Luka, you take Samuel and Emmett and Ethan here and circle around the other side. Ruben, you and Jonah stay put and guard the trucks. Take these, Ezra.” He pushed his binoculars into Ezra’s hand. “Take a look. Can you see the privy on the west corner?”
Ezra nodded. “Yep. It backs right up to the fence.”
“I want you to take Liam and Kylen and sneak inside. Take a look around, but for the love of all that’s holy, don’t get caught. See if you can find Hannah.”
“What if we can?” I asked. “What should we do?”
“Don’t do anything until you see my signal,” Pop replied. “Once you do see it, do whatever you have to do to get her out. Leave the rest to us. All you boys be ready to unleash the wrath of God on those bastards as soon as it starts.”
The others exchanged glances. “So…..” Luka faltered. “What’s the signal?”
“Hellfire and brimstone.” Pop hitched up his pants around his sagging middle. “Hellfire and brimstone.”
10
Hannah
I cringed on the rough wooden bench and hugged my arms around my chest. I couldn’t stop shaking, even though the woodstove in the corner radiated heat to fill the longhouse. I still smelled chloroform in my nostrils where they held the rag over my face.
I came home from taking a walk in town, and they ambushed me in my own room. I dropped my keys on the table. The next thing I knew, someone grabbed me from behind and held that stinking handkerchief over my nose and mouth. I woke up in the trunk of a car bouncing over the countryside. They dragged me into this room, and the rest was history.
Everett propped one foot on a nearby bench. He leaned his elbow on his knee while he talked strategy to his men. “When they come for her, we’ll cut them down one after another.”
His brother Terrence spoke up. “How do you know they’ll come after her? She’s nothing but a human. Why should they care about her?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Everett barked. “She’s Kylen Kelly’s sweetheart. You know what those Kelly’s are like. They’ve got some honor code about protecting their own, and now she’s one of them. They’ll send their best to get her back. Once we get rid of them, the Ridge will be left completely unprotected. We can overrun the place, eliminate the stragglers, and no one will be left to stop us taking over the whole damn mountain.”
My head shot up and I stared at him. He was awfully sure of himself. He didn’t even try to keep his plans hidden from me. I found myself examining him with new understanding. All this time, I thought he was a brainless brute. Now I realized he developed these stratagems for a purpose beyond what I could understand.
He caught me observing him and spun around. He bared his teeth in a horrible grin. “What are you looking at?”
I lowered my gaze to the floor, but the damage was done. His foot thudded to the ground and he clomped over to me. “You better mind your manners, Mrs. Kelly, or you’re going to wind up in a world of hurt.”
I didn’t say anything. He wanted to bait me into losing control. Maybe he wanted to scare me, or maybe he just wanted to make me mad. He would probably never believe what a compliment he paid me by calling me, Mrs. Kelly.
I cherished my night with Kylen in the depths of my heart. I
was a Kelly. I might not be married to one. I might be nothing more than a good time to Kylen, but I was a Kelly. Kylen said they would come after me. Hell, even Everett said so, so it must be true.
Kylen told me I would become one, and now I was one. He told me his Clan would protect me. I had to believe that above all else.
Everett parked his enormous body in front of me. His shoes entered my line of sight. Without warning, he grabbed my chin. He wrenched my head up so I had no choice but to look him in his ugly face.
The bluish patterns covering his skin gave him a ghoulish look. His discolored teeth dripped saliva, and his lips quivered with barely suppressed fury. He snarled in my face, and his voice grated in his throat. “I asked you a question. What do you think you’re looking at? Huh? Did you see something you like? Why not get yourself a real man instead of wasting your time with that peacock?”
He must have meant Kylen, though I never saw Kylen parading around trying to draw attention to himself. Everett did that more than any Kelly I ever met. Now here was Everett sticking his hideous mug in my face, going over the top trying to make me notice him.
He didn’t scare me anymore, though. Nothing he could do could ever scare me again. I was a Kelly. I belonged to something so much bigger and so much more important than anything I ever imagined. Kylen gave me that, and I blessed him for it.
He made me a part of his Clan. Now nothing could touch me. Getting kidnapped by these hillbilly crooks couldn’t do it. If Everett and his gang tortured or killed me, I would die a Kelly. Not even my own family back home could give me that.
Everett’s fingers clamped around my jaw until they hurt. He lowered his mouth so it came within an inch of mine, and I smelled tobacco juice on his breath. “What do you say, Mrs. Kelly?” he rumbled. “You like what you see, don’t you? Go on and admit it. I’ll give you what you’ve always wanted.”
I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to needle him. If I could throw him off his high horse, he might just let his guard down enough to give me a way out of here.
“I thought you liked me, Everett.” I heard my voice coming from far away. I sounded a lot calmer than I felt. “I thought you picked a fight with the Kelly’s over me, but the truth is you never gave a rip about me. You never cared about anything but getting your hands on Clan Kelly’s land. You’re using me as a pawn. That’s all. All this time I thought you were jealous because I liked Kylen instead of you, but you never liked me. You kidnapped me to hurt them, not so you could do anything with me.”
He yanked his hand off my chin with a jerk. He tossed my head aside and snarled louder than ever. He backed a step away and glared at me. His countenance shivered with rage. All at once, his expression changed. He laughed and turned away chuckling.
He shook his head and sauntered back to his friends. “You’re not as dumb as I thought you were. Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”
He leaned down and started talking to his men again, but this time, he kept his voice low so I couldn’t hear him. I watched from a detached distance. I understood everything now. He wasn’t interested in me, and now we both knew it. I was nothing more than a bargaining chip, a decoy to lure the Kelly’s off their land.
My mind went into overdrive. I had to get out of here and warn Kylen. I had to tell the Kelly’s it was a trap. I spent the last several hours praying they would come and rescue me. Now I didn’t want them to. I changed my tune in the blink of an eye. I wanted them nowhere near this compound.
I had to find a way to escape. My eyes slid sideways to look around the room. Four windows interrupted the high board walls surrounding me. A bank of two large glass panes overlooked a yard in the middle of the compound. A few people patrolled the outer fence. They all carried weapons and scanned the area for any sign of movement.
Another small window sat right next to the door. It looked out on another wall of plain boards. A two-foot alley separated another small house butting up to this one.
The fourth window occupied a place high up the wall at the far rear of the room. By sheer coincidence, I happened to sit facing this window. Solid black blocked out any view outside. I couldn’t see anything beyond it. The minute my eye landed on that window, a face appeared beyond the glass. A shock of blonde hair flashed across the blue eyes, and my heart skipped a beat. It was Kylen.
A surge of adrenaline coursed through my insides. He was here! I gulped down the urge to scream in relief and surprise. Was he alone? He couldn’t be. He couldn’t be stupid enough to come all the way here and break into the Lynches’ compound without his relatives to back him up.
My head spun with a thousand possibilities. The Kelly’s never did anything alone. If Kylen knew where I was, his Clan knew, too. His brothers and cousins and uncles must be outside, too. How could they be without the Lynches catching wind of their presence?
Kylen’s eyes met mine. The next instant, he vanished, but the mere sight of him changed everything. He was here. The Kelly’s knew where I was. They came to get me. It really was all true. I was one of them.
I almost burst into tears at the thought, but before I let my emotions get the better of me, another thought chilled my enthusiasm. I had to get out of here. I had to find a way to defeat these Lynches at their own game.
If I was a Kelly, it was as much my responsibility to stop the Lynches as it was Kylen’s or anyone else’s. I had to stop the Lynches from ambushing my people and taking their land—my land!
Cold fury seethed in my soul. These guttersnipes would never defeat us. They would never defeat me. I would destroy them, for myself as much as for my Clan. My Clan! Man, those words sounded good.
I took another good look around the room. All the men present carried guns. Rifles and shotguns rested in the corners out of my reach. They all wore handguns on their hips and in holsters around their shoulders. Several carried long knives in sheaths hanging from their belts.
I had to get one of those guns. The only real question was how. No, scratch that. The second question was what I would do with a gun once I got hold of one. What could one person do against ten armed men? The minute I made my move, they would be all over me like a bad rash.
That meant one thing. I had to wait until they left—at least most of them. The Kelly’s would strike pretty soon. I never doubted that. Either the Kelly’s would attack or the Lynches would discover them. Either way, when that happened, all these men would rush outside to fight. They might take their weapons with them, but they would almost certainly leave at least one man to guard little old me. That’s when I would act.
I concentrated on calming myself down. I had to steady my breathing and relax. I had to present the appearance of defeat and submission. I had to trick these idiots into turning their backs on me in favor of a real threat. Then they would never see me coming.
By keeping my head down and my eyes averted, I studied their weapons. Most carried semi-automatic handguns. A few had revolvers. All these men outweighed me by a hundred pounds at least, so I would have to rely on speed and surprise to get a weapon away from them.
Just then, Terrence stood up. He kicked his stool away and hitched up his pants. “I gotta go to the john. I’ll be back in a sec.”
He exited through the door and disappeared. The door banged shut, and Everett went on with his private discussion. I watched the interplay between the men’s faces. Someone asked Everett a question, and he answered.
When the next member of the group spoke up, Everett frowned. He went to the window against the back wall, slid up the sash, and called through it. “Hey, Terrence! Where did you say you planted that cache of C-4?”
A disembodied voice drifted into the room from somewhere out of sight. I couldn’t make out the words, but Everett did. He nodded, closed the window, and returned to his comrades. “He put it near Jacks River campground.”
He leaned on his knee and continued his conversation, but the sequence of events sparked a nugget of an idea in my
mind. The privy or toilet or outhouse or whatever it was—it was right outside that window. That’s where Kylen must be hiding. If I could get there, maybe I could make contact with him.
Terrence returned and resumed his seat. I delayed just long enough for the group to settle down again before I dared to speak. “Everett!” I called.
His head snapped around, and his eyes narrowed. “What do you want?”
“I need to use the bathroom.”
He made a disgusting face again. He sliced his finger through the air. “You take her, Charlie.”
One of the faceless drones got to his feet. I waited until he came toward me and hauled me to my feet by my arm. I was just a poor little helpless female who couldn’t do anything for herself. Yeah, right.
He shoved me across the room toward the door. None of the others dared to glance at me. They went on with their discussion. Charlie pushed me out into the early pre-dawn chill. I stopped outside the door to look around.
He yanked my arm to the right hard enough to make me lose my balance. I made him drag me around the building like I was too stupid to know where I was going. He came to a low, windowless shack behind the longhouse, and he pushed me through the door.
I almost stepped into the gaping hole in the floor before I realized where I was. Only a few slits of light squeaked through the gaps in the timber walls to show me the place. A single half-wall across the middle of the room separated it into two stalls. A simple, rough-hewn door prevented me from seeing into the other stall, which was a good thing because someone was in there.
Through the gap under the wall, I could see another unadorned hole in the floor. I rolled my eyes to Heaven. So this was how the glorious Lynches lived when they went on a raiding campaign against another Clan. Fan freakin’ tastic.
I approached the empty stall. No door concealed me in here. I straddled the hole, but I didn’t really need to go. Now what was I going to do? I looked down and caught sight of a pair of brown cowboy boots in the other stall. They looked oddly familiar. At that moment, a hand appeared and waved to me.