In His Keeping (Slow Burn 2)

Always cool under fire. Unwavering. Solid. Stony and rigid. Yeah, right. He was a hot mess because he knew this was bad. The worst possible outcome, one they clearly hadn’t seen coming. Goddamn it!

There was no gunfire. No ducking for cover. The night had gone eerily silent where before it had been ablaze with gunfire and explosions and yet not a single shot had come close to them.

It had been nothing more than a fucking distraction.

He was at full sprint when he hit the veranda and nearly tore the door off its hinges in his haste to get inside. To Ari.

They pounded into the house, guns up, spreading out as they cleared each room in a direct route to the safe room. The only place they could be assured the women were safe because they sure as hell couldn’t risk allowing them out of the house. But now Beau knew that somehow, the safe room had been breached and the unthinkable had occurred.

When they reached the still closed door of the safe room, Caleb’s face drew into an expression of confusion. With shaking hands, he punched in the security code, cursing when, in his haste, he failed to enter the correct code on the first attempt.

Zack merely shoved him out of the way and punched in the right code. The door slid open and they rushed straight into the bowels of hell.

The entire room was in disarray. There was a huge hole in the ceiling, which meant the bastards had gained entry from the attic, through the goddamn roof. The room was hazy from dust and the remnants of smoke swirling erratically. The gaping hole was large enough for a damn elephant to fit through. They would be lucky if the explosion hadn’t killed one or both women, because to force entry into the safe room, regardless of direction, it would take a hell of a lot of explosives.

“Ramie!” Caleb shouted hoarsely. “Ari!”

Caleb’s cry was echoed by Beau’s own as he yelled for Ari.

And then they saw Ramie, huddled in the far corner, her knees drawn to her chest, a vacant look in her eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her stare fixed forward unseeingly as she rocked back and forth in obvious distress.

“Dear God,” Caleb whispered as he rushed to kneel beside his wife.

Beau searched the room furiously as the smoke and haze began to clear through the now-open door, his gaze catching the rope ladder dangling through the opening in the ceiling. Already, Zack was nimbly scaling upward, pistol in one hand, rifle slung over one shoulder from a strap, securely holding it in place. Dane scrambled up behind him to provide cover, and all Beau could do was stare numbly at the wreckage of the safe room, absorbing the knowledge that he’d utterly failed to protect the woman he loved with his entire heart and soul.

Rage. Sorrow. Horror so paralyzing that he literally couldn’t breathe. He was bombarded by pain. So much pain. Terrified for Ari and what she was enduring even now. Knowing she’d trusted him. Had put her faith in him. And how frightened and alone she must feel, realizing he’d failed her.

Slowly he turned, knowing the only answers lay with Ramie, who was clearly in a stupor as Caleb touched her, talking to her in urgent tones, trying to bring her back from whatever hell she had descended into.

Tears streaked silently down her face, and like Caleb, Beau knelt on her other side, biting his lip to keep from demanding the answers he so desperately wanted—needed.

“Ramie, baby, talk to me,” Caleb pleaded. “What happened? Are you all right? You’re scaring me. Please, please, come back to me.”

Slowly her head turned in his direction, eyes dull and lifeless as yet more tears slid in endless streaks down her cheeks.

“He touched me,” she whispered, then looked away from Caleb, resuming her rocking. He touched me.”

She chanted it over and over, and cold rage froze Caleb’s eyes into hard ice chips. His jaw was locked in fury, and gently, as though she were the most precious, fragile thing in the world, he pulled her toward him, carefully wrapping his arms around her. He closed his eyes, seemingly losing the battle over his own emotions. Tears of rage, fury . . . grief . . . trailed down his face, carving raw, anguished trails.

“What did they do?” Caleb choked out. “Talk to me, baby. Please. I have to know how to help you.”

Ramie lifted her head but she didn’t look at her husband. Her gaze found Beau, and Beau was gutted by the grief reflected in her gray eyes. Sorrow. Regret. Guilt? Beau’s brow furrowed, and he leaned in closer, seeking to offer his sister-in-law comfort when she seemed on the verge of shattering into a million pieces. A feeling he fully shared and was currently experiencing himself. Only the knowledge that he had to keep it together for Ari quelled the overwhelming despair clutching at his heart.

She seemed to come back from whatever faraway place she’d sheltered herself in, a self-protective measure to escape her horrific reality. God only knew what had happened in this room. The safe room. Beau wanted to level the entire goddamn house. It was cursed. He never should have rebuilt it. It had seen nothing but pain, devastation and loss. And now, yet again, it had failed to be the impenetrable fortress he’d intended. Safe room. He wanted to choke on the irony that the one place Ramie and Ari should have been the safest was in fact where they’d been the most vulnerable.

In his and Caleb’s arrogance—hell, the arrogance of the entire DSS cooperative—they’d assumed that they could leave Ramie and Ari here, untouched. Safe from whatever evil lurked in the shadows that was coming for them. There was simply no such thing as a safe room. It was a naïve, stupid belief to think, no matter the measures they’d taken in its construction, that it would prove indestructible and impossible to compromise. It was a mistake he could well pay for and have to live with the rest of his life.