Hush - Fighting Fate #2 (44 page)

“It was Kaeli’s fault,” Noah said. “She took too long to get ready.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Only because I had to get ready twice.”

He smirked and twitched his eyebrow. Isaac laughed. “Just as long as you’re both here. How you going, Lina?” he said, leaning down to kiss my cheek.

Noah growled at him. “Lina?” I said, confused.

Isaac looked at me like I was daft. “You can’t expect me to keep calling you Thumbelina. It’s too long.”

Noah rolled his eyes. “You could try calling her Kaeli. That might work.”

“Nah,” he said. Quite seriously too. “She’ll always be little Thumbelina.” Noah shook his head at him and Isaac smiled. “Dad wants you in the kitchen by the way.”

Pulling on my hand, Noah started towards the back door. “Douche,” he said so Isaac could hear.

“Pee wee,” Isaac called back.

As we moved inside, I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. “You two are hilarious.”

“Don’t let him charm you. He’s a manwhore.”

I was going to reply that I had a feeling it might run in the genes, but then we were in the kitchen and Alli and Luke were smiling at us in welcome.

“Oh goodness,” Alli exclaimed, giving me a hug. “You look beautiful. You boys sure know how to pick them.”

“They get it from their dad,” Luke said with a grin as he kissed my cheek.

He smiled over at Noah, then gave him an assessing look, his gaze falling down to his waist.

“You know the rules. Put it away.”

Noah sighed but he was smiling. Reaching under his shirt, he pulled out his gun and shrugged. “I was getting there,” he said cheekily.

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head at him and laughed. My boy was the ultimate Boy Scout. Always prepared.

I watched him walk over to the cabinet on the other side of the dining table and place the gun in the draw. After locking it with a key, he turned and held it up for Luke to see before putting it in a dish on the kitchen counter.

“Happy?” he said dryly.

Luke smirked at him. “Very.”

“Alright you two. Enough with the mucho stuff. We have relatives to entertain,” Alli said, picking up a plate of food and passing it to Luke.

Noah took my hand and we followed his parents out the back door.

The yard had filled up a bit while we’d been inside. If I had to take a
guess, I would’ve said there were about forty or fifty people there.

“Are these all your relatives?” I asked, feeling a little overwhelmed.

“Mostly. Some are Kara’s family, and a few of Adam and Kara’s friends are here, but yeah, we have a big family.”

He dragged me over to where Adam and Kara were talking with Isaac and a bunch of other people, introducing me to a few who were apparently his cousins. Everyone was really nice and made me feel very welcome, and they were all extraordinarily happy to see Noah after
he’d been gone for so long.

Kara had decided not to worry about a main meal, choosing to have an endless stream of appetizers instead. I was actually a little surprised by the vast quantities of appetizers on hand…until I saw how much five grown men could devour in such a short amount of time.

I watched the brothers with keen interest during the night. They were all so similar, yet so different at the same time, if that made any sense. They all shared similar mannerisms and had the same dry sense of humor, and they obviously had very strong ties with each other, but they were uniquely individual.

Isaac was the loudest and funniest, but I could
tell he was just a big softy at heart. Adam seemed to have the most sense of duty…apart from Noah that was, because I had a feeling they were scarily similar in that way. Eli and Micah were the quietest, but it was obvious they were quiet in different ways. Micah seemed to think a lot, choosing only to talk when he felt it was necessary, and Eli, I think, was only quiet because it was too hard to get a word in whenever Isaac, Noah and Adam were around. I had a feeling that if you got Eli on his own, he would have quite a lot to say.

What else was amusing was the difference in girls they had each brought as their dates. Isaac’s date was a real blonde bombshell, who, I hated to say, didn’t seem to have much of a brain. Micah’s date was an opinionated teacher he worked with, who was also an out and proud feminist - and liked to tell anyone who would listen about the unfairness of our sexes. Eli’s date was a girl he went to college with. She was actually really nice, and I talked to her quite a lot over the night, but she couldn’t stop looking at Isaac, so I wasn’t sure how Eli was going to go with that one.

At some stage after all the speeches were done, and we’d all toasted to the happy couple, I watched Noah and his brothers as they gathered on the back deck. Noah had tried to get me to stay with him, but all the other girls were sitting around in the garden, and I wanted to try to fit in with them as much as I could.

Most
of the older relatives had already gone home, so Adam had changed the music to something more modern and turned it up louder. The atmosphere was perfect.

Deciding it was time to use the bathroom, I excused myself from Alli and Kara and made my way towards the back door. Noah grabbed me as I passed, making me giggle.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, talking into my ear so I could hear him over the music.

“I’m going to use the bathroom…”

Pulling me harder against him, he made a slight growling noise that made my body stir. “I could come and help you…”

I laughed, trying to push him away before I embarrassed myself in front of all his brothers.

“Jesus, Noah,” Adam said, laughing. “Leave the poor girl alone.”

Noah laughed and gave me a lingering kiss before releasing me. Giving him one last, flirty look over my shoulder, I slipped inside.

I knew I was wearing a ridiculously stupid grin. I couldn’t help it. He just made me happy. And to be honest, I thought I deserved a little bit of happiness after everything I’d been through over the years.

I was still lost in my thoughts of Noah when I turned to go down the hall, so I wasn’t aware of anyone else there until a hand came crashing down over my mouth and another clamped around my waist, lifting me up off the ground.

My whole body jerked, obviously not liking being taken by surprise, but a split second later my mind was rationalizing it, assuming it must’ve been one of Noah’s brothers playing a joke on me or something.

But then the rest of my senses caught up, and I was assaulted by
the acrid smell of stale smoke and hideous body odor.

“Hello, Kaeli,” Aaron growled in my ear. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you.”

Panic exploded inside me and I began to thrash wildly. Aaron’s arms tightened painfully and he slammed me up against the wall, making my head smash into the drywall. I whimpered under the crush of his hand.

“You wanna fight, Kaeli? Because breaking a few of your bones wouldn’t upset me.”

I tried to clear my head, think of some of the self-defense moves I’d learned last summer with Mia. Curling myself forward as much as I could, I thrust my head back as hard and fast as I could, crying out when the back of my head connected with something hard and sent pain shooting through my skull.

Aaron swore and his grip loosened a little, but not enough for me to break free. God dammit. Why hadn’t I let Noah come with me?

Clenching his hand exceedingly hard over my mouth, he started dragging me backwards. I had no idea what he was planning on doing, but I knew I couldn’t let him get me out the front door. If that happened, I knew my chances of getting away from him were slim to none. I just needed to get Noah’s attention.

I knew if I could get free I could scream, but the music was pretty loud now, and the guys were standing right where the speakers were.

Self-preservation kicked in and my determination rose. Fumbling for the fingers digging into my stomach, I grabbed his middle finger with one hand and the two end ones with the other, and as hard as I could, I ripped them apart.

“God fucking damn it! I’m going to fucking kill you in a minute,” he roared.

But I didn’t stop. I couldn’t if I wanted to have any chance of getting away. I pulled harder, making him slam me up against the wall again. Pain shot through my shoulder. Taking his hand off my mouth, he grabbed one of my wrists and, squeezing hard, ripped my hand away from him.

I screamed.

“Shut the fuck up, you stupid bitch!” he growled.

I kicked and twisted frantically. He shifted, trying to get a better grip on me and keep me quiet at the same time. Using my free hand, I raked my fingernails over his face and grabbed at his ear, ripping his lobe down as hard and fast as I could.

“Fuck!”

His grip slipped. Using the momentum, I slammed my head back again, screaming when another bolt of pain stabbed at me inside my skull, but it was enough for me to break free. He grabbed at me again, but I lashed out with a jab at his throat.

Not stopping to see how incapacitated he was, I ran. As I rounded the corner in the dining room, I felt my dress tug hard and heard it rip. My body jerked forward, free of his grasp, but he was too close. I knew I’d never make it to the back door before he caught me again.

With only instincts guiding me, I darted around the kitchen island, stopping on the other side as Aaron eyed me from the other side.

Now that I could see him clearly, I was seriously scared. He looked completely unstable. His eyes were freaking crazy. They were bloodshot and…just
big
. The pupils were so dilated it made his whole iris look like it was black. He looked like a god damned demon. It didn’t help that one of them twitched every couple of seconds either.

Then he had blood trickling from each nostril, obviously from when I’d head-butted him, and he was breathing incredibly hard. I could tell he was furious. His jaw was set so tight I could see the cords of his muscles bulging, and the vein on his temple was pulsing like mad.

“You have to make everything so fucking hard, don’t you?” he spat. “But you’re not getting away this time. I’ve got too much riding on this.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, and I really didn’t want to know. I just had to get out of there. I just had to get to Noah.

Grabbing the first thing I saw, I picked it up and threw it at him. Bits and pieces scattered all over the bench as it was upended. Aaron ducked, but the dish glanced off his shoulder, making him curse.

I thought about screaming, but out here near the kitchen, I could hear just how loud the music was.
There was no way Noah was going to be able to hear me. I thought maybe I could hold Aaron off long enough for Noah to wonder what was taking me so long.

I groaned. Why was no one else coming to use the freaking bathroom?

I looked back down, searching for something else to throw. If I could get him to duck again, I might have enough time to make it. But there was nothing. That dish had been it.

Then something caught my eye. It was the key Noah had put there. The key that he’d used to lock his gun in the draw. My gaze flashed over to the cabinet on the other side of the dining table. Could I make it?
Maybe without my shoes.

Reaching down, I grabbed one off and threw at him as hard as I could, immediately doing the same with the other. Then, s
natching up the key, I feigned running towards the back door, then quickly changed direction when Aaron darted to intercept me, dashing around the far side of the table instead.

As I faced off with him on the other side of the table, I wondered how long it would take me to unlock the draw. I remembered there was no safety on the Glock, and Noah hadn’t removed the magazine when he’d put it in the draw, so if I was right, it should be ready to shoot.

“Enough of this fucking shit, Kaeli. I told you, you’re not getting away this time. I’ve got nothing to fucking lose, and I’m going to fucking take you whether you like it or not.”

With that he jumped up on the table and scrambled over towards me, knocking chairs over as he went. I screamed, darting to the side and around the table before he could grab me.

The back door loomed in the distance, taunting me. With Aaron on the far side of the table I thought I might have a chance at making it, but no sooner had I thought it, he was jumping the table again.

I screamed, louder this time, hoping someone would hear me.

Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed the massive glass vase off the center of the table and threw it at Aaron with all my might.

As it smashed into him, I scrambled to the cabinet and fumbled to get the key in the lock. The second it turned, I reached inside and took hold of the gun.

Then Aaron grabbed me.

Chapter 70

Noah

I watched Kaeli walk inside, the happiest I could ever remember being. The flirty little look she sent me over her shoulder made me instantly hard.

“Oh, to be eighteen again,” Isaac said beside me.