Someone shot at me. I felt… numb wasn’t the right word. My mouth was too dry. My heart was beating too fast. I hurt, but it felt like I was hurting from a distance.
Shock.
“I need a team in the northeast quadrant.” Oren was on the phone. I tried to focus on what he was saying but couldn’t seem to focus on anything, not even my arm. “We have a shooter. Gone now, almost certainly, but we’ll sweep the woods just in case. Bring a med kit.”
Oren hung up, then turned his attention back to Jameson and me. “Follow me. We’ll stay where we have cover until the support team gets here.” He led us back toward the south end of the forest, where the trees were denser.
It didn’t take the team long to arrive. They came in ATVs—two of them. Two men, two vehicles. As soon as they pulled up, Oren rattled off coordinates: where we’d been when we were shot, the direction the bullets had come from, the trajectory.
The men didn’t say anything in response. They drew their weapons. Oren climbed into the four-seat ATV and waited for Jameson and me to do the same.
“You headed back to the House?” one of the men asked.
Oren met his subordinate’s eyes. “The cottage.”
Halfway to Wayback Cottage, my brain started working again. My chest hurt. I’d been given a compress to hold on the wound, but Oren hadn’t treated it yet. His first priority had been getting us to safer ground. He’s taking us to Wayback Cottage. Not Hawthorne House. The cottage was closer, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that what Oren had really been saying to his men was that he didn’t trust the people at the House.
So much for the way he’d assured me—repeatedly—that I was safe. That the Hawthorne family wasn’t a threat. The entire estate, including the Black Wood, was walled in. No one was allowed past the gate without a thorough background check.
Oren doesn’t think we’re dealing with an outside threat. I let that sink in, a heaviness in my stomach as I processed the limited number of suspects. The Hawthornes—and the staff.
Going to Wayback Cottage felt like a risk. I hadn’t interacted with the Laughlins much, but they hadn’t ever given me the impression that they were glad I was here. Exactly how loyal are they to the Hawthorne family? I thought about Alisa saying that Nash’s people would die for him.
Would they kill for him, too?
Mrs. Laughlin was at home when we arrived at Wayback. She’s not the shooter, I thought. She couldn’t have made it back here in time. Could she?
The older woman took one look at Oren, Jameson, and me and ushered us inside. If a bleeding person being stitched up at her kitchen table was an unusual occurrence, she gave no sign of it. I wasn’t sure if the way she was taking this in stride was comforting—or suspicious.
“I’ll put on some tea,” she said. My heart pounding, I wondered if it was safe to drink anything she gave me.
“You okay with me playing medic?” Oren asked, settling me in a chair. “I’m sure Alisa could arrange for some fancy plastic surgeon.”
I wasn’t okay with any of this. Everyone had been so sure that I wasn’t going to get ax-murdered that I’d let my guard down. I’d pushed back the thought that people had killed over far less than what I’d inherited. I’d let every single one of the Hawthorne brothers past my defenses.
This wasn’t Xander. I couldn’t get my body to calm down, no matter how hard I tried. Jameson was right next to me. Nash doesn’t want the money, and Grayson wouldn’t…
He wouldn’t.
“Avery?” Oren prompted, a note of concern working its way into his deep voice.
I tried to stop my mind from racing. I felt sick—physically sick. Stop panicking. I had a piece of wood in my flesh. I would have preferred not having a piece of wood in my flesh. Pull it together.
“Do what you need to do to stop the bleeding,” I told Oren. My voice only shook a little.
Removing the bark hurt. The disinfectant hurt a hell of a lot more. The med kit included a shot of local anesthetic, but there was no amount of anesthetic that could alter my brain’s awareness of the needle when Oren began stitching my skin back together.
Focus on that. Let it hurt. After a moment, I looked away from Oren and tracked Mrs. Laughlin’s movements. Before handing me my tea, she laced it—heavily—with whiskey.
“Done.” Oren nodded to my cup. “Drink that.”
He’d brought me here because he trusted the Laughlins more than he trusted the Hawthornes. He was telling me that it was safe to drink. But he’d told me a lot of things.
Someone shot at me. They tried to kill me. I could be dead. My hands were shaking. Oren steadied them. His eyes knowing, he lifted my teacup to his own mouth and took a drink.
It’s fine. He’s showing me that it’s fine. Unsure if I’d ever be able to kick myself out of fight-or-flight mode, I forced myself to drink. The tea was hot. The whiskey was strong.
It burned all the way down.
Mrs. Laughlin gave me an almost maternal look, then scowled at Oren. “Mr. Laughlin will want to know what happened,” she said, as if she herself were not at all curious about why I was bleeding at her kitchen table. “And someone needs to clean up the poor girl’s face.” She gave me a sympathetic look and clucked her tongue.
Before, I’d been an outsider. Now she was hovering like a mother hen. All it took was a few bullets.
“Where is Mr. Laughlin?” Oren asked, his tone conversational, but I heard the question—and the implication underneath. He’s not here. Is he a good shot? Would he—
As if summoned, Mr. Laughlin walked through the front door and let it slam behind him. There was mud on his boots.
From the woods?
“Something’s happened,” Mrs. Laughlin told her husband calmly.
Mr. Laughlin looked at Oren, Jameson, and me—in that order, the same order in which his wife had taken in our presence—and then poured himself a glass of whiskey. “Security protocols?” he asked Oren gruffly.
Oren gave a brisk nod. “In full force.”
He turned back to his wife. “Where’s Rebecca?” he asked.
Jameson looked up from his own cup of tea. “Rebecca’s here?”
“She’s a good girl,” Mr. Laughlin grunted. “Comes to visit, the way she should.”
So where is she? I thought.
Mrs. Laughlin rested a hand on my shoulder. “There’s a bathroom through there, dear,” she told me quietly, “if you want to clean up.”
