Her Own Best Enemy (The Remnants, Book 1) (36 page)

The gun sunk to the ravine floor like a stone in a well.

“Shit.” He winced against the searing pain in his hand. Sweat stung his eyes. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He couldn’t go back for it. But if he didn’t, he’d be forced to walk into the cabin unarmed. How could he rescue Grace without a weapon?

Overhead, Grace’s raw scream split the heavy air and nearly stopped his heart.

Put up or shut up.
He loved her and he’d damn well find a way.

Grace wrenched her mouth away from Colby. Her head struck the floor and bright spots swam in front of her vision.

“Get. Off.” She barely recognized the two short croaked words as her voice.

Colby smirked and dug his thumb deeper into her windpipe.

She choked and her vision contracted. Tears stung her eyes.

Keith, where are you?

The front door flew open and banged against the wall.

Grace twisted her head toward the door.
Please, God, let that be him.

“Colby, what are you doing?”

Grace’s heart plummeted as her eyes focused on the woman who stood just inside the doorway. Her long black hair hung past her shoulders in a vaguely familiar soft wave. White nurses shoes peeked beneath the hem of her faded jeans.

Where had Grace seen her before?

“What’s going on here?” The woman wrapped her arms around her plain white blouse, her violet eyes wide as they moved from Colby to Grace and then back again.

Violet eyes. Unusual color. Where had she seen—?

The hospital in Nogales! She was the frantic nurse that had run past Grace and Keith in the lobby. But what was she doing here? With Colby?

Blessed air flooded Grace’s throat and the pressure eased from her chest as Colby rolled off her and awkwardly reclaimed his feet.

“What good will it do me if she gets away before Keith arrives?”

Grace shifted onto her knees and moved into a crouch. She had to get out of here. If she waited for Keith to come to her rescue, it might be too late.

The woman frowned, her face scrunched, her dark eyebrows dipped at a sharp angle. “I...I thought we were leaving.”

Colby stepped in front of the woman and ran a hand up and down her bare arm. “We are, Elizabeth. As soon as I take care of something.”

That something wouldn’t be her. No way.

Grace bounded to her feet and ran for the door. Her shoes slapped loudly against the wood planks. You can make it. A little farther.

A bullet whizzed past her head and slammed into the wall in front of her. She froze. Her knees buckled.

Oh, God, that wall could’ve been her head.

“Go ahead,” Colby mocked, stalking up behind her. “Next time I won’t fire off a warning first.”

He fisted a hand in Grace’s hair and tugged. Her eyes burned with tears she refused to let fall. She grit her teeth against the pain and tried to knee him in the groin, but he dodged her with ease. He yanked her hair, forcing her neck into an awkward, painful angle as he brought his gun up and slammed it across her cheek.

Pain exploded along her jaw. A scream ripped from her throat and reverberated in her throbbing temple. She sucked in a fiery breath.

Don’t think about it. Ignore the pain. But, oh, Lord, it hurt.

“Elizabeth. Help me tie her to the chair.” Colby gestured to the thick rope coiled at the base of the stone fireplace.

“I...I don’t understand.” Elizabeth stepped further into the room, her voice soft and shaky. “I went for the supplies as you asked—”

“You don’t need to understand. Just—just shut up and give me the rope.”

Elizabeth bit her lip. Her gaze wavered to Grace. “Colby, can’t we just leave? Why are you doing this?”

Colby spun, dragging Grace with him. “Give me the goddamn rope, Elizabeth!” His roar reverberated around the cabin and rang in Grace’s ears.

Elizabeth flinched and tears sprang into her eyes, but she snatched the rope off the stones and tossed it to Colby.

He shoved Grace into the chair and flung the rope around her body. She threw herself forward and tried to break free, but Colby yanked on the rope and her back slammed into the chair’s rough, splintered wood.

“Stay put.”

Colby wound the rope around her wrists and pulled it tight. The nylon burned a path across her skin as he tied her up.

“No. Don’t do this.” Her plea fell on Colby’s deaf ears. She turned to Elizabeth who wrung her hands in the middle of the room. “Don’t let him do this, Elizabeth.”

Doubt flickered in Elizabeth’s eyes. “He...he loves me. We’re going to Rio—”

“He’s using you! Can’t you see the difference?”

Grace could. Whereas once she’d thought Keith capable of nothing more than taking advantage of her, she now believed in him. In his love. He was nothing like Colby. How could she have ever lumped them into the same category?

“Elizabeth saved me.” Colby ground the words through gritted teeth. He bent and got in Grace’s face. “I’m beginning to think Keith won’t do the same for you.” He grasped her chin in a bruising grip. “So, what should I do with you?”

She twisted her head and let his harsh breath land on her cheek. Her hands were quickly becoming numb and when she tried to yank on them to break the knotted rope, she only served to aggravate the burn across her wrists further.

“Go to hell, you—”

The back door crashed from its hinges and smashed to the floor. Dust scattered like plumes of smoke and Keith appeared in the doorway as if rising from the ashes.

Grace’s heart stuttered, relief and love filling her throat. Keith. He’d come for her.

Colby spun and fired off three quick shots in Keith’s direction. Keith lunged backward out the door, lost to Grace’s view.

“Stop it!”

The muscles in her throat went rigid as she screamed to be heard over Elizabeth’s keening screech.

Where was Keith? She held her breath and waited for him to burst through the door again, but the dust settled and all movement ceased. No. He couldn’t have been hit.

“Keith!” Her voice cracked on his name. She swallowed against the pain in her throat and listened for his voice, his footsteps. Please, God.

Nothing. No movement. No voices.

Elizabeth had stopped screaming, her eyes wide and laced with fear, even Colby stood still as a statue in the middle of the floor.

No. The denial fell from her lips without a sound. She bucked against her bonds. The legs of the chair scraped across the floor, shattering the silence.

She had to get free. Keith needed her. He couldn’t be shot. He couldn’t be lying in a pool of blood on the ground. She needed him. She needed him in her life so damn much. If she didn’t get the chance to tell him, she’d never forgive herself.

She tore at the tightly braided material that bound her hands, but the rope was far too thick for her to pull it apart. Tears slid down her cheeks and stung the cut Colby had put there with his gun. “Let me go. Let me go to him.”

Colby turned to her, eyebrows raised, a glassy, desperate look in his eyes. “Shut up.” He pointed the gun at her with shaky hands. “Stay where you are.”

Keith burst through the flimsy screen on the front door and tumbled to the floor. Colby leapt back, his eyes sparking with deep blue fury. He swung the gun and took aim at Keith.

The cocky hitch to Colby’s lips turned into a sneer. “You always did enjoy being a show off.”

Keith straightened. “Only about as much as you did.”

Blood dotted his forehead. He was covered in dirt. It matted his hair and dusted his army fatigues and the tips of his dark boots. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. His palm had a dark red angry gash running down its length.

But he was okay. Thank God he was okay.

Keeping the gun trained on Keith, Colby sauntered behind her and grabbed a fistful of her hair, torturing her already bruised scalp further. “Welcome to the reunion.”

Keith’s turbulent hazel eyes grazed her before cutting to Elizabeth and then finally coming to rest on Colby. She’d expected his show of tough, impassive, confidence. Those things defined Keith, after all. But the rigid ferocity that emanated from his tightly coiled body had her breath backing up in her throat.

“Keith?”

His stare wavered on her. The golden flecks in his eyes softened. “You okay?”

The words were issued in a raspy whisper that tore at her heart. As he studied her face she saw the fear and worry reflected in his eyes.

“I love you.” She swallowed past the hard lump in her throat. This wasn’t the way she wanted to tell him, with Colby’s fist in her hair and her entire body cringing with pain, but she refused to waste another minute of her life playing it safe with her feelings.

Keith staggered back a step as if the wind was suddenly knocked from him. He ran a trembling hand across his mouth and stared at Grace, his eyes wary, hopeful and desperate all at the same time.

Colby shattered the moment with a laugh. “Isn’t that sweet?”

A muscle leapt in Keith’s jaw and his narrowed eyes snapped to Colby. “C’mon, Colby. What are you doing?”

Colby shoved at Grace, sending the chair rocking against the floor. “Taking back my life!” He roared the words and jabbed the revolver in the air. “Do you have any idea how I’ve suffered? Because of you?”

Keith lifted his hands. “I threw a punch. That’s it. You know you deserved it. What you did to Rebecca Cooper was despicable. And she wasn’t the only one, was she?”

“All those little sluts begging for my attention got what they wanted. But me...I had a great future in the military waiting for me. You destroyed that...took it from me. Look at you, in the Special Forces. That should have been me!” He slapped at his chest with his fist. “Me! Not you. You took what was rightfully mine.”

“No.” Keith’s jaw hardened and his sliced the air with his hands. “I never wanted to join the Army. Not like you did. But I had to pay for my part in your accident and my penance was enlisting in the Army.” He took a step toward Colby. “Somewhere along the line, this career, my place in the Special Forces, became my salvation. There’s value in being honorable, Colby. Why didn’t we see it that way back then?”

Grace’s heart squeezed with pride. Had she really once thought Keith incapable of honor? Why had she fought the love in her heart for so long, thinking he wasn’t worthy of it?

“Honorable?” Colby spat. “You call stealing a man’s future honorable? Letting him suffer the indignity of surgeries and rehab treatments for years like some helpless cripple? All that time, wasted. What was I going to do with my life then? What future did I have?”

“Those wasted years are nothing compared to what you stole from Rebecca,” Keith said, standing his ground, and making Grace’s heart swell further.

Tears welled in Colby’s eyes and coursed down his cheeks in thick rivers of confusion. He blinked. “You didn’t have to lock me away in some asylum. I was only trying to get my hands on some of that cash you kept waving under my nose. Why’d you do it? We were brothers, man. Brothers. I thought family was supposed to take care of each other.”

A frown pierced Keith’s brow. “I’m not your brother, Colby.” He shuffled closer, his hands raised in surrender. “That wasn’t me.”

Colby jolted, his head snapped back and his eyes shifted from bewildered to surprised. “You’re not Victor.” His entire body trembled. “Of course you’re not Victor. I—I killed him. Serves the son of a bitch right for sticking me in a nuthouse and keeping me out of the way with his stupid drug cocktails.”

Keith inched closer. A narrow gap of two feet was all that separated him from Colby. “Victor was deliberately keeping you drugged and locked up?”

The gun in Colby’s right hand wavered. “He...he’s dead right?”

“Yeah. He’s dead,” Keith assured him.

“He deserved it.” Colby frowned. “It took me seven years of hard work before I could walk again. Seven years of daily torture and pain before I was capable of leading a normal life. And then I overheard Victor making a deal to smuggle some fricking terrorist into the United States.” He steadied his shaking hand, the gun pointed straight at Keith’s heart. “All I wanted was a piece of the action, you know? But he...he refused. So I threatened to blow the lid off the operation. Next thing I know, I’d lost nearly three years of my life to a drug-induced catatonia.”

Elizabeth had wedged herself in the corner between the wall and the fireplace, but now she straightened. She sucked in a breath. “He...he shouldn’t have done that. You deserved better, Colby.”

“What, like a second chance?” Grace ground her teeth and dug her fingers into the rope around her wrist. “He raped my sister, Elizabeth. He didn’t care. Like he doesn’t care now—”

“How did you know?” Keith asked Colby, cutting Grace off with his low, even voice. “That your brother was the one drugging you?”

Colby rubbed his nose with the back of his free hand then scrubbed at his cheeks. His entire body suddenly racked with shivers. “It was Elizabeth. She saved me when she accidentally dropped the tray that held all my medication and missed replacing the dose of my brother’s prescribed pills.” His blood shot eyes darted around the room. “She listened to my story and stopped giving me the sedatives. When Victor came for his visits, I pretended to be the incapacitated person he expected, but secretly Elizabeth helped me build up my strength so I could walk again.”