Shadows (Black Raven Book 1) (10 page)

“They’re dead. No one can help-”

“Call the police.” Her hair was wild and loose, blood splatter was on her sweater, and her eyes were wide, her gaze once again locked on Sarah and Daniel.

“We can’t do that.”

“Dial 9-1--”

“I’m it, Skye. I’m all the help that’s coming,” he said, “and,” he softened his voice, because when she looked into his eyes, the raw pain there stole his breath, “They’re gone. Stop looking at them. I need to get you and your sister the hell away from here.
Now
.”

Spring whimpered and, thank God, the sound captured Skye’s attention.

“Hey, honey, those bad guys are…gone,” Skye’s voice shook, “and we’re going to get in the van. Can you sit up?”

Spring nodded, but didn’t move.

“Not your van. My SUV.”

She ignored him. Her attention was focused on Spring. “All right,” Skye said, “so we’re going to try to get you to sit up, but I need you to close your eyes and not open them until I tell you.”

“Why?” Spring said.

“Move it, Skye. Now.”

Spring, wide-eyed, said, “He called you Skye. Not Chloe.”

Skye gave him a furious look, but her voice remained calm and comforting. “That’s because he knows our real names. We can use our real names with him. Just trust me, honey. I need you to keep your eyes closed, and we need to go.”

Holy fucking hell.
At this rate, they were all going to die of old age before he got them to the SUV. Sebastian moved around Skye, using his body to push her out of the way. Spring was five feet six and, he guessed, weighed just about one hundred and twenty. With a bit of effort from his thighs, shoulders, and arms, Sebastian managed to get her out of the deep well of the trunk with a two-armed lift. Thank God he was back in shape. Spring groaned, opened her eyes wide with surprise, as he straightened with her. “Hey pretty girl,” Sebastian said, “I’m helping you and your sister. You’re safe.”

Spring whimpered and pressed her face into his chest.

His heart twisted. Again.
God
. These two women were getting to him. “I know it hurts,” Sebastian said. “We’re going to get help for you.”

Pete returned to the doorway. “I locked the front door and put up the closed sign.”

Spring said, “Chloe?”

He paused when he heard Spring say Skye’s fake name, even though Skye had just explained to her sister that he knew their real names. Spring really had no fucking clue what was happening.
Son of a bitch.
The learning curve on this one was going to be pretty goddamn steep. Sebastian turned so that Spring could see Skye. “See. She’s fine.”

“Put her in my van,” Skye instructed, clearly used to giving orders that were followed.
Tough shit. So am I.

Sebastian moved fast, turning again, so that Spring didn’t have a chance to see the bodies. “Your sister’s getting into the SUV with us,” he gave Skye an over-the-shoulder, hard look, “and she’s doing it now.” He walked down the driveway, away from Skye, confident he had the one thing in the world that would make her follow him.

Within seconds, Skye was walking at his side. “I did not say we were going with you. You can’t manhandle us into doing that, and you don’t have authority to make us go with you. You’re just a private investigator, not a U.S. Marshal.”

“You see those two men?” He gestured with his chin, over his shoulder, to the corpses. “There are two more just like them at your house right now.”

She shook her head. “You’re just saying that.”

“The only difference between them and the two at your house is that the two who are at your house are alive. They’re going to show up here at any second. They won’t be thrilled when they figure out that their friends are dead, and I don’t feel like killing two more people today.”

Skye shook her head, eyes wide. “You’re lying.”

Sebastian glared at her, but kept walking. “And why would I make up this crap?”

“Who are they?”

“Hell if I know, ” he said. “I was hoping you had a clue.”

“Me?”

Hell
. She managed to look surprised, innocent, sexy, and angry all at the same goddamn time. “Well, we sure as hell don’t have time to figure it out.”

“They said they were marshals.”

“So did I, and we both know that’s not true.”

Pete pulled the SUV up to where they were. He jumped out to open the rear passenger door. As Sebastian bent to place Spring into the seat, she whispered, “Candy.”

Sebastian froze as her blue eyes drowned him in innocent, questioning light.

“Candy,” Spring said loudly. “I need to get her.” Tears flowed down her cheeks, smearing in the dried blood around her nose. Rocking, she gripped a clump of hair near her scalp and pulled. “We need Candy.”

Fuck me to hell,
Sebastian thought, as Skye turned to run for the van.
There is no time for this shit.
Human lives versus one dog life. Sebastian knew the relative weight of each, and he knew which one was more important when they had no time. Yet Spring’s big, innocent eyes inspired a deep, searing hurt, one that was long repressed. He had learned just how much life could suck when, at fourteen years old, he’d watched the man who had fathered him kick his dog to death. This wasn’t the day that Spring was going to learn how much it hurt to lose a dog, not if he could help it. He glanced at Pete. “Turn the SUV around. If the other guys come, leave.”

“Wait. Should I stay to deal with local law enforcement, at least until our Cleaner or the marshals get here?”

“No,” Sebastian said. He appreciated Pete’s take-one-for-the team attitude, but he wasn’t about to give up Pete for what promised to be a lengthy exercise in futility. “Local officials will detain you for God knows how long and they ultimately won’t even have jurisdiction over this, because it will all be linked back to the prison break. I need you. We saved lives today. You did nothing wrong. You didn’t even fire a weapon.” He turned for the van. Over his shoulder, Sebastian said, “Get the hell away from here if you see the other guys. I’ll worry about Skye.’”

Sebastian caught up with Skye, who had made it to the van, where the front seat was empty.

“Candy was here,” Skye’s eyes were bright with panic, “She barked for a while, then there was nothing.”

To make the vehicle into a delivery van, the passenger seats had been removed. Now, the long cargo space was filled with smears of white, chartreuse, purple, and orange icing, and chunks of cake. Only a fraction of the cake remained standing on the almost floor-level platform where the sisters had placed it. Skye gasped, and pointed at golden fur that was curled into a tight ball, tail between her legs, with her nose pointing in the corner.

Awww hell. Don’t let her be dead.
Sebastian opened the passenger door, stepped into the van, hunched down so that his head didn’t hit the ceiling, and walk-crawled to the dog.

“Please let her be alive,” Skye said, right behind him.

He touched fur that was sticky with globs of cake. She was warm and trembling. “Hey, Candy,” a long snout turned to him. Big, sad brown eyes gazed into his. “Alive.” She yelped when he put pressure on her right shoulder and neck, but fast-licked a warm trail across his cheek and nose as he lifted her. “From her licks, I think she’ll make it.” He stepped out of the van, the dog in his arms, looked at Skye, and said, “Come on.”

Pete had the SUV running, and Spring opened the door as Sebastian approached with the dog. He placed the dog on Spring’s lap, and said, “Push over.” To Skye, who stood at his side, and who showed no sign of getting in the car, he said, “Get in.”

She folded her arms with her feet firmly planted on the ground. “Where are you taking us?”

“Away from here. Somewhere safe.”

“I understand,” she nodded, her eyes fiery, “but my sister needs medical attention. She had a bad concussion two years ago. Doctors told me to be careful with future injuries, and that bastard hit her so hard I think she passed out. She needs a Doctor. An MRI. A CT scan. Now.”

“Ragno. You hearing this?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Is it bullshit?”

“No. She was in Skye’s car accident. Remember?”

“Head injury then?”

“Concussion,” Ragno said.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Hey,” Skye snapped her fingers, her hand just a few inches from his face. “Listen to me. Not whoever is talking into your ear. Candy needs medical help as well.”

“No need to snap. I can handle more than one conversation, which seems to be one more than you can handle, because you’re not understanding any goddamn thing I’m telling you. There are two more, just like them, at your house. People pay me one hell of a lot of money to protect them. When I say something, I’m used to people damn well listening. For the seven hundredth time, get in the fucking SUV now.” He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t have to. The woman wasn’t stupid and the problem wasn’t her hearing.

Pete had turned and was looking at them, and Spring was wide-eyed and staring at Sebastian as though he’d grown three heads.

Skye’s eyes flicked to Spring, then she focused on him. “Stop talking like that.”

“Like what?” Sebastian asked. Yes, he was exasperated with her. But he wasn’t yelling. He never yelled. He was using the exact voice he used when he was knee-deep in an operation. The kind of tone that everyone but Skye responded to by following the orders he issued.

“Like I have no option but to listen to you.”

He paused, drew a deep breath, and wanted to punch something when he read resistance in her folded-arm stance and uncertainty in her eyes. “Exactly what are you not understanding about this?”

Pete, his tone agitated, said, “There really are two more of these men, and they’ll be here any second. We’ve got to go now.”

Skye drew a deep breath, and there was a moment of silence as Spring looked with wide-eyed fear at the two men. To Spring, Skye said, “Honey. It’s going to be all right.” To Sebastian, she said, “Speak nicely.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? Armed men are on their way for you and your sister, I’m trying to save you, I even rescued the damn dog, and you’re bothered by the tone of my goddamn fucking voice?”

“Noooooo. No. No. No. Noooooooo,” Spring whispered, as quiet as Sebastian was yelling, her misery a match for Sebastian’s anger. Spring looked straight ahead as she tore at her hair with both hands. “No. No. No. No. No. No.”

“I’m
not bothered one bit, dumb ass. She’s bothered, and just in case you’re not getting the picture here, everything I do is about her. So if you can’t speak nicely,” Skye’s voice was low, her tone normal, as though she was talking about the weather on an uneventful mundane day, “we can’t go with you-”

“Funny,” he interrupted Skye, “but all the intel that I have on you didn’t point to stupid and senseless, but I guess there’s some things you just don’t know until you’re face to face.”

“You’re the one who’s not understanding-”

“You have nowhere to run,” Sebastian snarled, trying to persuade her to move. “Now. Get. The. Hell. In. The. SUV.”

“No. No. No,” each time Spring said the word, it became louder and faster, until the words rolled together, “NONONONONONONONO.”

The incessant yelling was unlike anything he’d ever heard. Her constant stream of no’s had a rhythmic quality, more like a drum beat than a human voice, more scared than angry. She was holding her ears, rocking forward and back. Skye pushed past him in an effort to get in the SUV, to her sister. “What the hell?”

“You’ve upset her.” Skye pushed Spring and Candy over, slipped onto the seat, put her arms around her sister, and tried to stop her sister from pulling at her hair and scratching her own face. “She’s having an anxiety attack, thanks to you,” she mumbled, “asshole,” under her breath.

Sebastian kicked the running board in exasperation, provoking another steely-eyed glare from Skye as his kick produced a loud thumping noise and another stream of no’s from Spring. “Did you really just say that? Thanks to me? Asshole? When you mumble, I can hear you, so just go ahead and say it.”

“Thanks to you, my sister is having an anxiety attack,” Skye said, keeping her voice calm as she managed to wrap her arms around Spring, who was trying to wriggle free. The no’s started to subside. “Now, when you speak, please use a nice voice.” Sparks flew from Skye’s eyes, but the tone of her voice suggested that they were having a nice, pleasant conversation. “If we go with you, will you take us to get medical help?”

“Yes,” he snapped.

She glared at him. “Nice voice. Got it?”

He softened his tone, “Of course I’m taking her for medical help.”

“Immediately?”

Even under duress she was bargaining? He bit back a smile of admiration and nodded. His smile disappeared when he realized Spring wasn’t making eye contact with either of them and Skye looked as scared as he’d seen her look all day.

“Her meds are in my purse. In the van,” she paused, drew a deep breath, and worked her hands around Spring’s fists, which were now clenched around long strands of her own hair. “And we need our backpacks,” she informed him, not removing her eyes, or her arms, from her sister. “We can’t leave here without our backpacks; right, sweetheart? Come on, honey. You’re fine. We’re fine. There’s no need to be scared. Breathe for me.”