Heartsong (Green Creek 3)

I turned.

Standing on the porch was the man who’d been at the door near the top of the stairs. His eyes were cold, mouth set in a thin line.

Another human.

And he was pointing the gun at me.

“Yeah,” he said. “Lobito, you don’t want to fuck with me right now. I swear to god I’ll shoot you in the fucking balls if you—”

My hand burned as I stooped down and picked up the crowbar, then hurled it at him. He barely ducked in time as the crowbar flew over his head and embedded itself in the side of the house.

He stared at me. “Oh, I am going to shoot you so fucking much—”

Ox burst through the doorway, pushing the man’s arm down as he started to raise the gun.

“Oh, come on,” the man said. “Just a little. Just a little gunshot. I won’t aim for anything important.”

“Your bullets are silver, Rico,” Ox said.

The man frowned. “I know that. Oh. Right. It’ll kill him.” He squinted at me. “Are we sure that’s not a good idea? I mean, if I hit him in the leg, we could always amputate it before—”

I snarled at him, keenly aware of the others moving slowly around me, circling.

Hunting.

Joe appeared behind him, followed by Gordo and Mark.

The odds were absolutely against me.

Good.

Fuck them.

Fuck them all.

They wanted to see what I could do?

Fine.

I grabbed Tanner, as he seemed to be the weakest of the wolves. He squawked angrily as I hurled him at the man named Chris. They fell back in a tangle of limbs.

I turned toward Jessie.

She was still smiling.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demanded.

She shrugged. “I missed having someone scrappy to spar with. The others tend to be all brute strength. It’s pretty insufferable when you think about it. Men.”

“Chris,” Rico said, “your sister is being mean again.”

“She’s got a point,” Ox said mildly, as if they hadn’t just kidnapped me and weren’t trying to kill me.

“Tanner, would you get off of me?”

“I’m trying, but your foot is in my asshole!”

Joe sighed. “This isn’t going like I thought it would.”