I had to get to her.
Get her out.
Save the girl.
My girl.EIGHTSaveaAs soon as my brain registered what it meant that the alarm didn't stop beeping, instead only seemed to get louder, more insistent, everything within me seemed to seize, freeze.
Everything.
Muscles.
Heart.
Blood.
Everything was still as my eyes landed on the men.
I couldn't claim they were familiar per se. I hadn't gotten a good look at them that night, after all. But something in me seemed to recognize them.
They were meaner looking in the daylight. Criminals, bad guys, they belonged in the dark. But here they were. In the light, the sun streaming in behind them.
Two sets of eyes landed on me, eyes going victorious, lips pulling up into sneers.
Everything unfroze just as quickly as they froze, making me turn, run.
I realized really quickly a flaw in Kingston's apartment.
One exit.
Windows aside.
And they were blocking it.
So I did all I could, I tore through the hall and into the bedroom, locking it with shaking fingers, turning away from it to the sound of pounding, a sound that matched the frantic beating of my heart against the confines of my ribcage.
Think.
I had to think.
Kingston had a gun in his drawer at work.
Maybe he had one in here too.
There was nowhere to stash something like that in the living room.
I dove toward the closet, throwing my arms wide to push the clothes inside to the sides, dropping to my knees to throw open boxes.
Hopelessness filled me as I heard a scraping sound in the lock.
Picking.
I didn't have to have heard it before to place the sound when I heard it.
They were picking the lock.
Like they had done to the front door.
I didn't have long.
Inwardly, a part of me was praying Kingston was close, that Padfoot was quick and they were circling back, that they could show up, save the day.
I didn't, not for a second, doubt that he was capable of doing so. Even if he was outnumbered.
Home field advantage and the need to protect someone close to you always played to your advantage.
Mothers could lift cars.
Husbands could take down intruders.
And those were just normal people.
Kingston wasn't normal.
He was extraordinary. Smart. Skilled. Quick.
If he was close, he could - and would - save me.
But I couldn't curl in a ball and wait to be rescued. Only fools depended entirely on someone aside from themselves.
"Who needs this many shoes?" I grumbled, throwing the last box, standing, going to the two boxes situated at the top of the shelves, having to jump to grab them.
"Yes," I hissed, finding one loaded down with various items. Money. Fake IDs. A real passport.
No gun.
But a knife.
I had never figured I was someone who could stab something, that could use a knife for anything but slicing up fruit and veggies.
It was why I didn't go into veterinary medicine when it became clear I had an affinity for caring for animals. I would love all the little visits, weighing them, trimming nails. I could even do the injections for everyone's rabies vaccines.
But the idea of putting a dog under and slicing them open... nope. Not even to help them. The thought sent a shiver through me.
Knives and blood.
I wasn't good with blood either.
One of the guinea pigs at work once tore out its toenail. It was like he'd been slaughtered. Blood was all over him and me as I picked him up, pressing a paper towel to the spot as I tried to open a bottle of Septic powder to staunch the flow. I was shaking by the time Harry showed up, finding me clutching the guinea pig to my chest while rocking and crying and trying to breathe normally again.
He'd shaken his head at me, reaching for the guinea pig, placing him carefully back into his cage, squatting down in front of me with a smirk.
"You gonna make it?" he asked, his smile genuine.
He had helped me up, brought me to the bathroom to clean up, offered me a clean shirt from the stock of store shirts we sold, shared a cup of coffee with me while I calmed down.
It was one of the very few times we managed to be around each other without arguing over the store, about repairs that needed to be done, about what we needed to order, him always telling me there was no money for it.
But, yeah, I didn't do blood well.
I could handle my own.
But anyone else's?
I shivered at the idea as I closed the knife in my hand as the door made the worst sound imaginable.
A quiet creak as it pushed open.
I tried to suck in a breath, felt it get caught, making me cough hard.
"Don't make this difficult," one of them demanded, holding up a hand, like he was somehow going to coax me into going with him.
If there was one thing I learned from crime shows I occasionally watched for a few minutes before turning it off, my stomach not able to handle that much ugly, it was that you never, as in ever, let someone take you to a secondary location.