Chapter 12
Sydney
Glass and snow flew into the air as I let out a surprised shriek. That was so not the kind of explosion I’d been aiming for.
Kyler spun around, using his body to block mine, but not before tiny sparks of pain lit up my chest and stomach. I gasped as cold air roared into the room and wind tore around us. A floor lamp toppled over. Paintings on the wall rattled.
“Holy fuck!” he shouted, bringing us down so that he was almost crouched over me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I carefully put my hands on the cool, wet floor. “You?”
“I’m good.” His hands slid down my bare back, and then he placed my sweater over me, wrapping it around my shoulders. “Stay down, okay?”
I nodded as I tugged on the sweater. Scooting on my knees to the wicker sofa, I looked over my shoulder. Kyler stood slowly, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “What happened?” I asked, shivering.
He moved closer to the shattered part of the glass. A whole section was gone. Jagged edges rose from the wooden pane. “I don’t see anything or anyone out there.”
“Anyone?”
“There aren’t trees close enough to do any damage to the back of the house.”
“But the wind—”
“The wind is strong enough to blow a fallen limb, but there aren’t any limbs down below.” He turned around, brushing his hair out of his face. When he saw me huddled against the sofa, his jaw hardened. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I pulled the sweater closer, ignoring the raw stinging as it brushed against certain areas. There were more important issues. Like, for example, how a window had just blown up. “I’m okay, really. What do you think happened?”
Kyler shook his head as he knelt in front of me. “I don’t know. Maybe the window got so cold that when…” Was he blushing? “That when you pushed against it, it shattered? I don’t…What the hell?”
My heart skipped a beat. “What?”
He leaned over to the right and picked up something that was lying on the floor. In his open palm, I saw a small round pellet. “Son of a bitch,” he said, standing and whirling around in a graceful move I’d seen him pull off on a snowboard. “I’m not an avid hunter or anything, but this looks like goddamn buckshot.”
“What?” My shriek had to have burst his eardrums. “Are you serious?”
He nodded. “Fuck-a-duck, that’s what it looks like.”
I couldn’t believe it. “But doesn’t a buck shell, like, spread out? Wouldn’t we’ve been hit?”
“I don’t know.” He tipped his head back, and the edges of his brown hair grazed the collar of his hoodie. “If someone aimed for the top of the window, it has to be possible that the spray would’ve missed us.”
I shivered again, but this time it had nothing to do with the cold. “You really think someone was aiming for us?”
Kyler said nothing.
“That’s crazy,” I whispered, and then added, louder, “Do you think it’s a good idea to be standing in front of the window, if that’s the case?”
“No one’s out there now, and neither of us was paying attention before…. Someone could’ve been standing right in the opening for all we know.”
“Watching us?” I was hot and cold all at once. Our eyes met, and then I looked away, swallowing against the sudden nausea. I’d been topless and his hand had been… Someone could’ve been watching that?
Someone with really bad aim?
“Could it have been someone hunting?” I asked, hopeful.
His brows formed a deep V. “In this kind of weather? It’s a blizzard out there.”
“It’s West Virginia. People hunt here in all kinds of conditions.”
Kyler turned back to the broken windowpane. “If that’s the case, a bear must’ve been hanging from our roof.”
I would have rather believed that than that someone actually had been shooting at us, but after the guy on the snowmobile I wasn’t so sure I could consider those two situations to be coincidences. But it didn’t make sense. I couldn’t imagine anyone being that mad at us. Fear trickled in, though, as icy as the wind.
What if that shot really had been on purpose?