Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 4)

“Nope,” Oliver replied honestly.

“I am going in without cover then,” Jasper informed them and began to study the shadows.

“We are going to have to go in through the front door. Harry’s closed the shutters,” Niall hissed. “Besides, you aren’t going to be any use to Harry if you climb through the bed chamber window. He will think you are an intruder and shoot you just as soon as you throw a leg into the room.”

“Niall, you keep watch, or go and fetch the magistrate. Try not to leave a trail of blood behind you, eh? We have enough bastards to contend with without you giving them a helping hand.” Oliver grinned when Niall squared his shoulders and threw him a filthy glare as he told him quite crudely where he could shove his insult. Seconds later, he disappeared like a wraith into the darkness in search of reinforcements.

“Ready?” Jasper asked Oliver when they were alone.

“Front door is it?”

“I don’t see any reason to fight our way around the side of the house when there is a gaping hole at the front we can use, do you?” Jasper replied with a grin.

He felt considerably better now that he was closer to Molly. He knew, without any doubt whatsoever, that nobody was going to take her anywhere without taking him as well, even if he had to cling to the side of any carriage that Denzel’s mob tried to bundle her into. Nobody was going to be abducting Molly or Oscar on this night.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Damn it,” Harry growled when several thugs barrelled through the front door while more poured out of the back room of the house. It was evident that they had been gathering their men in preparation to swarm the house. Now that they had, Harry was hopelessly outnumbered. He was reduced to shooting anybody who placed a foot on the bottom step of the stairs. It still wasn’t enough because Molly and Oscar couldn’t reload the weapons fast enough.

Oscar lunched to his feet and raced into several bed chambers to check the shutters hadn’t moved. Molly’s fingers shook so badly with fear that she struggled to reload the guns so they were ready for when Harry held his hand out. She knew her delay was going to get them all killed. Thankfully, Oscar was more able to think more clearly through his panic than she could, and appeared moments later beside them to hand them each a poker.

“It’s all there is,” he gasped.

Harry let out a long whistle as loudly as he could. It was replied by another hoot of an owl. Seconds later, a fierce barrage of bullets was fired through the door again. Several of the thugs in the hallway fell to the floor but it was still not enough to take down the man who started to surge up the stairs.

Molly braced herself and began to smack heads as hard as she could. With Oscar behind her and Harry beside her, she swung, smacked and walloped anybody who ventured close enough for her to reach. On the occasion when she stumbled backward, Oscar took over.

“How can you enjoy this?” Molly screamed when Oscar grinned at her.

“Because we are beating them,” Oscar smirked before he took aim at another thug’s head.

The resounding thwack he landed on his opponent’s head was met with a bitter curse but did little to stem his charge. Harry, having just dispatched his latest opponent, placed a well

-aimed boot in the middle of the man’s chest. When he simply flailed his arms wildly, Molly hit him again and again. When he still didn’t fall, Harry planted another boot in his stomach. It was the loud blast of gunfire from someone just outside the front door that eventually took the man down.

Molly screamed when a large patch of red began to flourish in the middle of the man’s chest. His eyes, which had been cruelly glaring at her, suddenly went blank. He began to gurgle seconds before he fell backward and down the stairs and took out several of his cohorts with him.

“Sir Hugo!” Harry shouted.

“Keep firing, there are more out here,” Sir Hugo yelled back. “We need a few more minutes.”

“Damn it,” Harry snarled, but had little choice in the matter. He had to try to hold off the enemy until Sir Hugo could get the thugs outside out of the way.

“How do we get out of here?” Molly breathed as she studied the tangle of men lying at the base of the stairs, but Harry wasn’t listening. He was slamming his poker at anybody who ventured anywhere near.

Jasper left the fight that was still raging directly outside the front door and vaulted up into the apple tree but when he reached out to the window he realised it had been locked before the shutter had been closed. He waited until another blast of gunfire interrupted the loud screams and shouts from the men in the house and promptly smashed the window. With a well-placed boot Jasper then kicked the shutter open. He didn’t even glance at the cold and empty room as he charged through it. Jasper wanted to see Molly and that was that.

What he didn’t expect to see when he reached the hallway was Molly and Oscar fighting alongside Harry. They were slamming pokers into a veritable army of thugs determined to get upstairs to them.

“Stop right there!”

Everyone in the hall at the base of the stairs froze at the sound of that feminine voice. Even Molly paused, until she realised someone was standing behind her.

“Jasper!” she cried when she saw him. Without thinking, Molly threw herself into his arms.

Jasper held her tightly for a moment. When his eyes lifted and met Harry’s, Jasper read the warning in the depth of his friend’s eyes.

“Stay behind me,” Jasper murmured to Molly, but only once he had pressed a kiss to her lips that held all the promise that lingered in the loving look that he gave her. He nudged her behind him before he motioned to Oscar to get behind his sister. When the boy moved to pass him, Jasper stopped him and whispered something into the young lad’s ear that had Oscar scurrying off again. Seconds later, he returned.