“Fuck off.”
I tossed the rifle aside, knowing how risky it was. I stepped forward and threw a punch. I hit him in the mouth, once, twice, and then once in the gut. He bent over, crying. Literally crying his eyes out. I grabbed him by the throat and then walked him back to the edge of the lake. One perfect uppercut sent him off his feet and into the water. He hit the water, thrashed his arms, and then fought to get back out. He scrambled after his clothes and I grabbed the rifle again.
“Who the fuck said you could leave here alive?” I asked.
The guy slowly stood, holding his clothes. “What do you want from me?”
“How much did he pay you?”
“A thousand. For you.”
“Nothing to do with the woman?”
“Nothing, I swear.”
“You going to see him again?”
“I don’t know, am I?”
I thought about it. “Go to your fucking guy. Tell him exactly what happened here. Someone comes here again…” I pointed the rifle at his legs and I pulled the trigger.
The guy toppled to the ground, screaming.
I stepped toward him and pointed the rifle again. “Next one is in your skull. Get the fuck out of here.”
The guy gritted his teeth as he cried.
I pointed the rifle into the air and shot again.
“Go!” I screamed.
The guy kicked to his feet and dragged his shot leg into the trees as he made his great escape.
I hoped he got attacked by an animal.
“Shit,” I whispered.
Maybe I should have killed him. But who the fuck was I? I wasn’t a killer. I was a fighter. I fought until the fight was over and that was it.
I turned and looked at the back of the cabin.
To keep Rose safe… I’d have to learn to kill.
~
I opened the closet and Rose winced and whimpered.
“It’s just me, sweetie,” I said. “Just me.”
I crouched down and she attacked me. I’d never seen a woman move that fast before in my life. She flew at me, hit me, and then I was on my back, Rose right on top of me.
“Did you get shot?” she asked.
“No. I didn’t.”
“Did you… kill…”
“No. I sent him with a warning.”
“Wes, who was it?”
I reached up and touched her face. “It wasn’t for you. It was for me.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. We’re both in some really hot water here. We can’t stay here forever. They’re going to keep coming.”
“I don’t know what to do or say right now.”
I felt Rose’s belly rumble against mine.
Christ, just having her this close was making me hard again. She was like beautiful voodoo to my cock and I was helpless to fight it off.
“You’re hungry,” I said. “I am too. Let me make us something. I’ll build a fire and we can relax.”
“How can we relax when people are coming to hurt us?”
I gently touched Rose’s face. “Hey. Nobody is going to hurt you. Ever. I swear on my life. Okay? Now, if you want to relax… grab a bite… have a stiff drink. Crash on the couch, sweetie. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
Rose had the biggest doe eyes I ever saw.
And here I was… making promises that I damn sure knew I couldn’t keep.
21.
(Rose)
The fire raged with snaps and pops. The flames licked to the top of the fireplace. The cabin was flooded with a comfortable heat. I rested on the arm of the couch, my legs across Wes’s legs. I had two glasses of some kind of whiskey and my world was rocked. Wes sat there, staring into the fire, the bottle in his hand.
I had to trust him.
“Wes…”
“What, sweetie?”
“Have you ever killed someone?”
“No,” Wes said. He looked at me. “Why?”
“We’re not going to get out of this, are we?”
“We’re going to fight until there’s no more fight left in us. That’s the only way I know how to live.”
“You’re going to have to kill someone probably.”
Wes drank from the whiskey bottle. “Yeah, I know.”
Silence.
The fire popped again.
“Wes… tell me about your first fight.”
“My first fight?” Wes asked with a grin. “Oh, I’m not sure, sweetie. Probably with a kid named Billy in second grade. He had flunked second grade twice. He was a giant. This massive kid would pound the shit out of everyone. Take their pencils. Their change. Anything. He one time stuck a frog in my pocket and punched my leg so hard he killed the frog and bruised my leg for a week.”
“You stood up to him?”
“No. Not quite. He cornered me once after school. I had two bucks in my pocket. I knew it was all me and Shane had. Christ, Rose, I stole the two bucks from my teacher’s purse. I wanted to show Shane, and then he and I would hit up the penny candy store and stock up. Shane loved the gum cigarettes. Remember those? He’d puff on them and shoot out that little cloud of sugar.”