From right under her left breast to the middle of her thigh was an extension of the design, but it only had bursts of color here and there, like she was highlighting specific details.
With her long brunette hair that fell to just above her butt, she looked badass, but overwhelmingly feminine, too.
In a world full of eating disorders, beauty treatments, surgical enhancements and fixings, and whatever else, she was the real deal, inside and out.
“Yeah,” Hunter muttered, walking over and looking down at the boys, who were asleep in their swaying swing seats. Whoever had invented those things was a genius, especially if you had more than one baby who needed to be settled. “How are they doing today?”
“They’re great as always. Didn’t wake up through the night and slept in until six-thirty. Then they spent the day sleeping, pooping, and eating,” I added, picking up a pile of clothes to take through to my room, while I watched him look from Walker to the doorway Lena would come back through when she was done. “So, how do you know Lena?”
Glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, Hunter frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “We—”
Whatever he was about to say was cut off by shouting outside the house, followed by the screeching of tires.
Pulling his gun out from under his cut, Hunter was walking over to the front door, when it felt like the house just exploded, piece by piece at a time, as what sounded like multiple guns opened fire.
I didn’t think about anything but protecting the boys, so I pulled their swings behind the couch, hoping the padding would protect us from the bullets.
“Get to the space,” he roared over the noise, just as Lena dropped down beside me, her breaths coming in frantic pants.
To get to the small cupboard beside the kitchen, we’d have to run across the room to the doorway, though. With bullets coming through like they were, I couldn’t see how we’d make it without getting hit.
“It’s too risky,” I whispered, just as three bullets hit the other arm of the couch, making it move with the impact of each one.
Grabbing my hand, Lena squeezed it tightly. “We’ve got to do it. Put Hendrix inside your hoodie and zip it up over his head, and I’ll do the same with Walker. When you get up, keep your body bent over and your arm up like this,” she angled her arm close to her chest, like she was wrapping it up and over a baby.
“If it gets too much, drop down behind the recliner, and we’ll reassess. But we’ve got to get to that space in case someone gets in.”
Knowing she was right, I unclipped Hendrix and placed him inside my hoodie, reaching back for his pacifier and blanket. “Don’t forget Walker’s binky. It’ll keep him quiet if he wakes up.”
How they were sleeping through the noise, I didn’t know, but aside from some squeaking as they were both relocated inside our hoodies, they stayed blissfully unaware. Holding my hand, Lena got up into a crouch, and motioned at me to do the same.
“On the count of three. One, two, three—”
I didn’t even have to force myself to run, it just happened naturally, the arm on the side the bullets were coming from protecting the baby, and the other around his back holding him safely against me.
Making it safely past the recliner, it wasn’t until we got to the doorway that we even came close to a bullet, as one whipped in front of my face, hitting the wall an inch in front of Lena’s head.
Ducking down even more, we managed to make it to the hallway, and ran toward the small cupboard door.
Pulling it open, the two of us crawled inside it and down into the corner where Taras’ men had put armored plates around, only two weeks ago. There wasn’t one in front of us, but the cupboard went far enough into the walk-in closet in the spare room, that only having the plates on either side and behind us would be enough.
The door had one, too, and they’d added a lock that, from the outside, looked like it was padlocked shut. Because this was a make-do panic room, there was also a small camera in one of the decorative hinges, and a monitor showing the feed from it was next to us.
Turning it on, all we could see was the empty area in front of the door, but not what was going on farther outside.
“That’s no fucking help,” Lena hissed, pressing buttons to see if any other feeds were viewable, while she pulled a gun out of the waistband of her pants.
I needed to start carrying. I wasn’t sure if this was related to The Road Kings or Taras and his family, but now that I had the boys, I needed to make sure I was ready for anything. That was the whole point of being taught how to shoot, so why hadn’t I made sure I was prepared for anything? I’d been near a bomb just over a month ago, for Christ’s sake, hadn’t I learned from that?