Page 40 of Everything We Found

She squeezed his hand.And go where? How?

But he was already cautiously easing the door open. He moved into the hallway only to stop short. Nadia bumped into his back but he stood his ground. His hand slipped from hers. Through the darkness, Nadia made out the shape of a gun pressed to Thomas’s temple the same instant she heard the rack of a slide.

“El Carnicero envía sus saludos.”The Butcher sends his regards.

Like a cascading waterfall of liquid nitrogen, the warning doused Nadia in fear, instantly freezing her to the core. With a violent tremor rattling through her, she was backing up into the room before she realized she was moving. Just as suddenly, Thomas whipped his hand up and back, knocking the intruder’s arm holding the gun away from his head. Using his shoulder as leverage, Thomas slammed the intruder’s arm into the door frame, once, twice, then a third time. The gun dropped with a metallic clunk.

The intruder grunted, unfazed. He lunged at Thomas, the two becoming a blur of movement in the dark as fists met body parts. Nadia stood stuck to where she was, petrified with fear, unable to distinguish Thomas from their attacker. Two figures in the dark, clad in black.

Arms swung. A leg kicked out. Then someone went down with a hard thud and pained groan.

“Get the keys,” Thomas grunted. Fists raised, he stood in a defensive stance over the man on the ground. Her relief that he wasn’t the one on the floor was short-lived. The intruder hookedhis foot behind Thomas’s ankle and Thomas went down hard. The other guy shot up to his feet.

“Tom!” she shouted.

“Keys,” he ordered, clutching the arm he’d landed on. She hesitated when he struggled to stand. “I’ll be okay.Go.Get out of here.”

The other man laughed, standing over Thomas. She couldn’t leave him, not like this. But then there was a flash of silver. Thomas slashed a blade upward along his attacker’s inner thigh. The man squealed and dropped to a knee. Thomas slashed again and again, rising to his feet as he did so. Where did he learn to fight like that?

“Nadia!”

It was an order. She roused from her stupor.

“I’m going.”

Her toe kicked the gun in her haste to leave, sending the weapon spinning down the hallway. She picked it up as she raced into the kitchen to snag the keys. But they weren’t there. The counter space by the sink where she’d left them was clear.

“What the—?” She swore she’d left them right there.

“Looking for these…Nadia?” The thickly accented question came from behind her. Keys rattled.

Nadia jolted, then froze. Her stomach plunged in her abdomen. Time slowed down—that fraction of a second between hearing his voice and the brutal realization that their situation was much worse than they’d thought—before she turned to face a second intruder. He smiled behind a ski mask as black as his cold eyes and lifted a gun, aiming the muzzle between her eyes. He wouldn’t miss, not at point blank range.

Another flash of silver in the corner of her eye. The intruder jerked with a guttural grunt of pain, his shoulder snapping backward, the momentum forcing him to stumble back a step.His gun arm wavered, blood seeping around the knife embedded in the shoulder of his firing arm.

“¡Pinche gringo!”

He switched hands and aimed again, but not at her.

Nadia didn’t sense her arm lifting. She didn’t feel the icy metal in her hand. She didn’t register pulling the trigger. Not until the intruder’s head swung sharply back and his body crumpled to the floor. A ribbon of blood oozed from his forehead. She’d shot him in the face.

My god, who was she?

The gun hung limply in her grasp as she cried out, stumbling backwards until her back hit the counter edge. She’d killed a man. Ended his life. Nausea swelled and black spots swam in her vision.

Suddenly, Thomas was in front of her, hand gripping her shoulder, lifting her chin, his piercing gaze demanding she focus on him. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He took the gun from her and slipped it into the waist of his pants at the small of his back.

“I shot him.”

“Yeah, you did. And he would have shot me if you hadn’t. He’d have killed you next.”

Her bottom lip trembled. Her gaze darted around the kitchen, seeking out the body behind him.

“He wouldn’t have hesitated.” He rubbed her upper arms. “Nadia!”

Clarity snapped back like a rubber band. “We need to leave.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said as he grasped her arm. He snatched up the black duffel in the TV room, slinging the strap over his head and shoulder, and rushed them out the back door.