novelraw Chapter 100: Taking It Back
Chapter 100: Taking It Back
The leader’s ultimatum hung in the warm room like frost that hadn’t decided where to settle. Ten minutes. "Less polite." The two younger raiders kept shuttling whatever they could find from kitchen to door, wet boot prints laddering the floorboards. The fire popped; snow sifted in across the threshold and turned to bright dots on the rug.
Sera didn’t move. But the creature inside her did.
It paced once, twice, then lay long down her spine with a low, impatient rumble. Count them. Count the beats. She breathed slow, in through her nose, out through her mouth. She could end this in seconds if she let go. She didn’t need a weapon. She didn’t need anything but the length of a heartbeat.
But the problem with that was that the sacrifice she made wouldn’t be to the men with the rifles.
It would be made to the men on the couch.
Only Zubair and Lachlan knew what lived coiled under her skin. The others didn’t, and she wasn’t going to compound on her secret by letting everyone know it.
A voice from the stairs: "Yo, check this out."
One of the younger raiders clomped down from the bedrooms with both arms wrapped around something huge and green.
Oogie Boogie.
The two feet of ridiculous plush, the green squish mallow grin bobbing with each step. Alexei had found it for her. She could barely get two arms around it on a good day. She slept with it every night, never took it out of the room. Her creature had read it as a gift, a promise. Something from hers that belonged to her.
The kid bounced it in his grip like a basketball. "What is this, a pillow? I’m keeping this. Boss’s girl will—"
Sera’s foot slid forward, weight shifting for the lunge before the thought finished forming.
A solid wall of Lachlan stepped in front of her. His hand found her hip and pressed—just enough to anchor. His other palm lifted toward the riflemen, a slow, soothing easy.
"I got this," he murmured, low enough for only her. "I’ll get back both the ugly-ass gift and the chocolate." He nodded toward one of the other raiders.
The other young raider had fished a shrink-wrapped brick of chocolate bars from a crate and stuffed two into his pocket. He grinned at Sera like a kid daring a dog to chase him.
"Put both back," Lachlan said, voice even, a slight smile on his face.
The leader tilted his head, rifle never wavering. "Or what?"
"Or you find out how fast I can be between here and your man before you can pull a trigger," Lachlan said, the softness never leaving his tone.
Zubair’s gaze cut once to Lachlan, once to Sera. A heartbeat of silent agreement passed between the three of them. Elias sat forward a fraction, elbows on his knees. Alexei sighed, like a man inconvenienced by a late bus.
The kid with Oogie laughed and hugged the plush to his chest. "Nah. This one’s mine."
And Lachlan moved.
He didn’t telegraph. One step and he was across the room on a line that made no sense until it was already happening. His left hand knocked the nearest rifle’s barrel up and out with a casual shift that looked like a greeting—then his right elbow came down like a hammer to the man’s throat. The wolf gagged, stumbled, and Lachlan rode him to the floor without looking away from the leader.
Zubair moved on the same breath. He stepped inside the leader’s rifle, took the sling with one hand, hooked behind the man’s elbow with the other and bent it backwards.
Bodies make a particular sound when joints were asked to go somewhere they don’t normally go. The leader’s finger tightened on the trigger; Zubair’s thumb crushed the tendon above his wrist and the shot never happened. The muzzle snapped harmlessly past the bookshelf.
Elias flowed off the couch like water finding a lower place.
He didn’t go for a gun.
He went for a throat.
The second rifleman never saw him; he only felt a shoulder drive into his ribs and a knee take his weight. Elias rolled with him and a heartbeat later had him choking on his own spit, forearm across his larynx, the weapon kicked neatly under the coffee table.
Alexei stood up, picked the cast-iron lid off the stove trivet with one hand, and met the chocolate thief’s temple with a clean, ugly bell. Electricity left the boy’s legs. He folded, candy bars skittering.
Sera stayed where she was.
See the field. Count the angles. She waited for the place the plan would break. It broke where she knew it would: the kid clutching Oogie flinched when Alexei dropped his friend, and in his flinch his barrel swung toward Lachlan.
Sera was already moving.
She caught up the knit throw from the back of the couch, stepped behind the kid, looped the blanket over the rifle and pulled, dragging the barrel off line while her knee tapped the back of his leg.
The gun cracked—loud enough to make everyone’s teeth ring—the bullet climbing into the plaster near the ceiling as the yarn ate the recoil. She twisted—arms, not unnatural strength—and the rifle tore free wrapped in wool, clattered hearth-long into the screen.
The kid grabbed for her with empty hands. She caught his wrist, rotated it the way she had see Zubair doing it countless of times with one of the others.
He howled, kicked, stopped when it hurt in that bright, immediate way that changes minds.
"Stay," she said, calm.
The leader finally tore away from Zubair—but he had to choose between grabbing his rifle and protecting his face from Lachlan’s fist.
He chose wrong.
The quiet punch that met him was all shoulder and hip. He kissed the wall and slid down it, eyes unfocused. Zubair stripped the rifle and stepped back, muzzle leveled with the center of the man’s chest.
Silence hit the room like a second explosion.
Smoke curled from the bullet groove in the ceiling. Snow continued to drift over the threshold. The fire, offended, snapped twice in quick protest and went back to work.
"Hands," Zubair said to the men still breathing. His voice was soft and would not be argued with. "Show me your hands."
They did.
Sera shook the blanket once, letting cordite and wool settle. The creature yawned, slow and pleased, then rolled back onto its side to watch. Lachlan’s gaze flicked to the stairs. Oogie lay where the kid had dropped him halfway down. Lachlan toed the plush up with the side of his boot and, without making a ceremony of it, nudged him toward Sera’s reach.
She pretended not to notice and scooped him up anyway, hugging the soft belly tight just once before setting him on the arm of the chair like nothing had happened.