Harleigh Rose.
Mute shoved me against the wall beside the door and carefully rounded it with his gun up and out.
“Fuck,” he swore a second later as he backed up into the house slowly.
Lysander Garrison appeared in the doorway, Harleigh Rose dwarfed in his big arms, the huge barrel of a sawed-off shotgun to her temple.
“Put the gun down, Mute,” Lysander ordered softly. “I’m not gonna hurt anyone, okay? I’m just doing this because you’ve got to listen to me. The police are on their way but they won’t be here quick enough to save the girls. You have to trust me here, brother. I can help you guys.”
Mute snarled. “Not your brother. Lou, get here.”
I immediately obeyed, racing to him and sliding behind his back. He braced in a slight squat so I could—painfully—climb up onto his back. I wrapped myself tight around him so he wouldn’t have to waste a hand supporting me.
Smoke started to billow hot and black at our feet as the flames in the front room grew stronger.
“Fine but we don’t have time to argue. I’m workin’ with Lionel Danner on this. You gotta trust me here, if not ’cause you want to, then ’cause you know I’m the best chance for you here,” Lysander tried again.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
Sweat beaded on my back. It wasn’t a big house and it was only a matter of time before the fire spread, eating up all the wood like a starving, feral creature.
Lysander sighed then slowly lowered his gun from H.R.’s temple before taking a step back and lifting his arms in the air. Immediately, she ran to us and stood at our side, her hand finding my back and pressing in for comfort.
“No harm,” Lysander said, putting his gun slowly over his shoulder so it lay across his back by a thick bit of rope. “Now, if you’re willin’ to take a chance, I’m leaving now. They think I’m back here to catch you if you think of runnin’ but I’m helpin’, okay? There’s a car waiting just through the trees to the left of the estate, thirty meters tops. You run fast and hard, you can make it before they figure out what’s happening.”
“Mute, let’s do it,” H.R. whispered.
“Agreed,” I seconded then louder I said, “My sister is on the roof. You need to get her down.”
Something flared behind his eyes as he thought about my little sister on the roof of a flaming building and I immediately warmed to him for it.
“Let’s go, Mute,” I urged him.
He didn’t move.
The smoke was thick now and the snap, crackle and pop of wood tearing, burning and crumbling to ash was loud all around us.
I could barely breathe from the smoke in my already weak lungs when I begged. “Promised to stay alive for you, Mute. Need you to get me there and that way is through this guy.”
I don’t know if it was the hoarseness of my voice and my resulting body jerking coughing fit or if it was my words, but Mute jolted forward as if he’d been jump-started.
“You get her hurt, I kill you,” he threatened even as he started running to the door and out it.
Harleigh Rose followed us but Mute put her in front, as we followed Lysander around the side of the house and stopped just out of sight of the front driveway.
“Thirty meters through the trees straight ahead,” Lysander said when we came to a stop. “I’ll get Bea and you worry about gettin’ out of here alive.”
I whimpered at the thought of leaving my sister but the shouts from the front of the house alerted us that our time had run out.
There was about ten meters between the forest and us, with twenty meters still more after that.
“Doable,” H.R. said, her soot-streaked face set with determination. She still held a knife in one hand and her gun in the other, both held up to her face as if being able to see them made her more confident.
“Got this,” Mute agreed.
“Good, now go,” Lysander ordered.
Mute took off like a shot, Harleigh Rose on the other side of us, farther away from the driveway. I clung tight to him as he thundered across the grass, his breath and pulse thumping away in my ear as I pressed my face into his neck.
Pop.
The familiar sound of gunshots followed close behind us.
Pop. Pop.
“Let me down, I can run and you’ll be faster without me,” I shouted in Mute’s ear but he only hefted me higher on his back and ran harder.
Pop.
Harleigh Rose screamed.
And in that second that Mute stopped slightly to turn his head and check on her, I saw a fourth man, one we hadn’t known was there, one that looked so familiar, at first, I thought he was there to help us.