Micah (17 page)

“
Fuck you. I wouldn’t do a
damned thing that would help you kill me.” The front guy took a
step back, as if he was shocked that she’d figured it out. Gracie
touched her mind and told her what the man’s name was and that of
his brother. “What do you think, Nestor? You think we just fell
from the turnip wagon? Fucking idiot. And you should also know that
the police are coming for us. We’re going to laugh our asses off
when they get you two.”

“
Oh no. No one knows our
family. And our mother would have left this to us had we not
murdered her.” Reggie looked at Gracie as the man continued. “She
had meant us harm. And we decided, Keith and I decided, that we
were adult enough to be on our own. So we murdered her. It was her
or us, and we were the victims in this. No courtroom in the world
would say any differently. We’ve studied up on it.”

When Keith, the man in front of
Nestor, moved toward them, she reached for one of the chains and
wrapped it around her wrist as a weapon, using the cuff end to hold
onto. If they tried any shit, she was going to hurt them before
they got to her. Maybe she’d be able to kill only one of them, but
she was going down trying. Standing up proved to be more difficult
than she’d hoped, but she was ready. She watched them while holding
onto the gate of a stall next to her. Putting all her weight on her
good foot, she swung the chain back and forth. It was a good deal
easier than she’d thought it would have been. Heavy, yes, but it
was not hard.

“
Now see here. You cannot
harm us. We have gone to a great deal of expense and effort to make
things ready for you, and now that we’re aware of how wrong you are
for us, you will have to die.” He’d said that so matter-of-factly
that she nearly missed his lunge at her. But she whipped out the
chain quickly, catching him around the leg and knocking him on his
back. Nestor grabbed his brother and pulled him back. “Are you
trying to hurt us? What…why? What have we done to you?”

“
Are you fucking serious?
You have kidnapped me and my future mother-in-law and brought us
here to this place to kill us. Killed my employee and God knows how
many others. Not to mention, you just confessed that you murdered
your own mom. Come on and let me fuck you up a bit.” Getting the
chain to swing wasn’t as hard, but getting it up and over her head
proved to be a little tricky. But once she had it swinging like a
lasso, she knew that she was scaring the shit out of them, and that
was worth the strain to her arm. “You two are by far the stupidest
fucking idiots that I’ve ever run across. And that’s saying a
lot.”

As the chain gained speed, it became
easier to control. She could touch it nearly to the floor and did
so a couple of times just to dust up the straw that was there.
Neither of the two men came near her, but she could tell they were
losing their patience with her. Well, she wasn’t going down without
a fight.

“
Put that down this
moment. You are not cooperating as you should.” Reggie laughed and
nearly fell back when the movement took her balance a little. “Put
that down and let me take you out of here.”

“
I don’t think so. What
you should be worried about is if I let this go, what will happen
to you when it hits you? And it will, I’ll make sure of that.” She
said that like she had that much control over the thing now. In
fact, she was terrified that when she did have to drop it—and the
pain in her shoulder was telling her that wasn’t going to be much
longer—it was going to kill either she or Gracie, and both the men
would be unharmed. That was the way her luck usually
ran.

The second she thought she could no
longer hold the chain, Keith drew a gun. It startled her enough
that she swung low instead of higher to let the chain go. As he
moved toward her, Reggie lost her hold on the chain and it caught
Keith in the neck and wrapped around him twice before the loud snap
made her realize that she’d killed him. Backing from the other man,
she watched in horror as Keith’s body seemed to drop in slow motion
before he fell face forward right in front of her. Reggie grabbed
up the other chain. Fuck this shit.

Nestor stared at his brother for
several seconds before he dropped to his knees, then fell atop the
man. As he did so, Reggie started to swing the other chain. She was
hurting now. Her shoulder and arm felt like they were burning in
pain. But it had kept them at bay for a while and she hoped that
now that one of them was dead, she’d have more time. Time for what,
she had no idea, but time was her friend.

“
What have you done?” She
didn’t answer but kept her eye on him. Gracie made a mewing sound,
but she didn’t look. If she was hurt, then making a noise meant she
was alive, not dead. But just to be sure she spoke to
her.

“
Gracie, I want you to
stay where you are. I don’t want you hurt.” She said something
back, and Reggie asked her to repeat it.

“
I said they’re on their
way. Howie is moving toward us now.” The other man looked at the
door, then at her as he stood up. The gun in his hand looking
steadier than it had in his brother’s. “If you get hurt now,
Regina, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”

It made her laugh. Reggie had no idea
why, but laughing at Gracie gave her hope as well. “I’m working on
that. Please, don’t get yourself hurt either.”

“
I won’t,” she told her in
a calm yet humor-filled voice. “I think that you’re doing a
splendid job and should you get hurt now, there are others here to
help you.”

The chain was really going. The pain
in her arms was a blur now. It hurt her so badly that she was sure
that when she stopped swinging the chain, her arm was going to come
off with it this time.

The first bullet hit the chain. How
the hell he’d managed that was a miracle. And when he fired again,
this time at Gracie, Reggie lunged at him, forgetting all about her
sore ankle. The pain made her sick and she wanted to pass out with
it. When she released the chain this time, she nearly threw the
chain and threw up on him at the same time.

It caught him in the arm, and since it
was outstretched, it pulled him in and wrapped him up. The hook
caught him in the face; the chain cut deeply into his body. Blood
sprayed all over her, the hot feel of it making her think of a
shower. Everything slowed to a crawl as she tumbled to her knees
and the chain cocooned Nestor.

Reggie watched him, her face
splattered in blood as the man screamed out in pain, the chain
going up his arm to his chest, then his neck. Even as it wrapped
around his head, cutting deeply into his mouth, tearing the flesh
open, Reggie heard someone screaming. She had no idea who it was
but knew somewhere in the back of her mind that it was her. All she
could see was the blood and her brother.

Nestor’s head came off…just seemed to
fly from his body as the chain, at its end, wrapped its final coil
around him. The head, his head, rolled toward her, his upper teeth
grinning at her like a scary clown. The horror on his face, the
look of pain and terror, kept her from looking away from
him.

“
Reggie.” She tried to
drag her view from the face. The blood seeped from it, staining the
straw beneath it until the man said her name again and again.
Blurrily, she looked up at him. He looked familiar, and she looked
back at the face that seemed to be grinning at her the more she
looked at it. But he told her to stop and to listen to his
voice.

“
It’s Howie. Micah’s
grandda. You know me. I’m not going to hurt you. Look at me, love.”
She tried again to pull her eyes from the nightmarish scene in
front of her, not even realizing she was crying when he said her
name harder, with more authority.

“
I killed him.” He said
good, and she finally looked at him. “Mr. Bentley? Where’s Micah?
He said he was coming to save me.”

“
You don’t need him for
that, honey. I think you did just fine on you—no, baby, don’t move.
I want you to stay just like you are. But keep looking at me.” She
nodded and felt her body start to shut down. “Reggie, if you pass
out on me, Micah is going to be really pissed. He’s got it in his
head that you should be running out the door toward him and
grabbing him up in your arms like one of the stupid girly
shows.”

“
I’m so tired.” He said
her name again as the world around her seemed to blur a little.
Focusing on him became harder and harder. “Will you please let
Gracie go? She can help me if you just let her go.”

“
I can’t do that. The
police are going to need to see what you’ve done.” Tears rolled
down her face as she thought of her brother and Micah. “Honey,
don’t cry. Things are going to be just fine.”

“
I killed them. I killed
them both and no one is going to take care of Boyd. And Micah will
be all alone.” She looked in the direction of Gracie. “I’m so
sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

If she answered her, she had no idea.
Her body simply gave up. Even as she dropped to the bloodied straw,
she could feel everything. The pain was just too much and she
closed it all out.

Chapter 10

Micah started toward the building
almost as soon as he put the car in park. If he turned off the
engine, he had no idea. Running across the yard, he nearly fell
backwards when his grandda tackled him.

“
You can’t go in there.”
Micah shoved at him and nearly knocked him out of the way when he
found himself on his ass with Joey on his chest. Snarling, he
nearly missed what his grandda was saying. “She’s out, fine but
out. Your mother is just fine too, sitting there like she’s going
to be receiving tea at any moment.”

The burst of tears from his grandda
caught his attention. “Grandda? What are you not telling me? I need
to see her. I need to go and hold her.”

“
You do that and she’ll be
in prison before you can find her a lawyer. And I won’t be able to
help you because by then you would have killed me. I’m saving both
of you.” Joey asked him if he could move off him now or did he have
to hold him before he continued. “They’re both alive. Hurt…Reggie
is really hurt, but she’s going to make it.”

“
Then why…?” He looked at
the barn, then at Joey again, who nodded. “She killed them. Mom
saved them both by killing those men.”

“
No. Reggie killed them
both, according to your mom.” Grandda sat down, clearly shaken as
he continued. “She saved your mother. And herself. But she killed
both them men with…it’s awful, Micah. She just…it’s the worst crime
scene I’ve ever seen.”

The police rolled in, their sirens
screaming before he could ask Grandda how. David was taking point
in this and directed everyone away from his family. As he stood up,
Micah looked around and wondered why they’d been brought here and
not to the farm. Joey, standing next to him, filled in the
blanks.

“
Mom said that they’d
taken them to the farm first. She said she heard them talking and
that they found the place covered with police tape. They knew that
if the woman had come up missing, that would be the first place
they looked.” He looked at the barn before he continued. “They were
going to kill Mom. It wasn’t their intentions to bring her along,
but Keith had taken the wrong woman and they were going to take
care of that issue.”

“
So they came to a place
they knew.” Joey nodded at him. “And had they gone there, Mom would
be….”

“
Yeah.” Neither of them
wanted to think of their mother gone, so Joey changed the subject.
“I told her to say that she’d overheard them at the van, not that
she could hear them in the yard. It will look better to everyone if
she didn’t tell them that because of being a panther, she has
excellent hearing.”

“
You’re right.” Micah
watched the cops go in and one of them come out, puking nearly as
soon as he came out of the barn again. That wasn’t a rookie, he
could see, but a seasoned cop. If he was sick, then it must be
worse than his grandda had said. But for now…well, Micah didn’t
give a shit. “How is she hurt?”

“
I didn’t see her. Grandda
wouldn’t let me in either. But he did say that she had a lot of
cuts on her body, and that her ankle is broken. Also…also her head
is concussed. Badly. She’s going to need lots of rest after a long
stay in the hospital.” Joey laughed a little. “She also dislocated
her shoulder, and Grandda seemed to think that was the funniest
thing he’d ever seen.”

“
Why the hell would he
think that’s funny? Is he insane?” Joey nodded, then laughed again.
“Either tell me or I’m going to pound you until you’re fucking
broke.”

“
She killed the first one
with a chain, swinging it like a lasso Mom told him, and even
though she was in a great deal of pain, she picked up the other one
and did the same to the second one. Grandda seems to think that you
two are going to raise hellions.” Micah told Joey they couldn’t
have children. “I don’t think that’s going to stop you from raising
them anyway.”

He supposed not. As the police seemed
to be taking their time, Micah made his way to the entrance. The
smell of death nearly had him shifting, his panther wanting to go
in and make sure that his mate was all right. Micah calmed him by
assuring him that she was fine. But he wasn’t so sure. When the
next cop came out, he was surprised to see that it was David. He
pulled him to the side and looked him in the eye.