Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Very serious.
I could hear the puppies howling now.
It was only then I knew something wasn’t right.
“Out of bed,” Hutch ordered.
“What?” I still wasn’t with the program.
“Now,” he whispered, again in that tone, except it was more urgent, thus, I got with the program quickly and got out of bed.
It was way too cold to sleep in the nude, even if we’d had all kinds of fun after trick-or-treating (and Hutch even ate a Snickers bar, but our fun wasn’t about Snickers bars) so I had on his pajama pants and a cami, he had on some PJ pants too, but his chest was bare, therefore he was pulling on a Henley.
He slipped out of the room.
I heard him issue orders to the dogs as I wandered after him, feeling my skin tingle and my stomach sinking.
“Quiet, Tonks. Sit. Stay. Stay. Good girl. Hannibal. Quiet. Guard.”
I was in the hall when he showed there.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his office.
He went to a big, tall, locked cabinet, and my breath left me.
It was his gun cabinet.
I heard the beeps as he punched in the code, then threw it open.
He pulled out a magazine and handed it to me.
“And this,” he said, giving me Moxie’s laser pointer.
Then he hung something around his neck…
And yanked out a rifle.
Oh God.
“Hutch, is—?”
“Shh,” he shushed me. “Follow.”
Beginning to tremble, I shushed and followed.
He went to a spot in the hall, jumped, caught a string hanging down from the ceiling, and pulled down the steps to the attic, shuffling me back as the stairs unfolded in front of us.
“Up,” he ordered.
I scrambled up.
The area up there had a ceiling so low, you couldn’t stand, so I shuffled to the side to get out of his way, doing this stooped, as he came up and then pulled up the steps.
He squatted and produced his phone from thin air.
He hit buttons and put it to his ear.
“Yeah. Hutchison. Four four eight one CR Ten. I got intruders. Send units,” he said into his cell.
Intruders?
I knew it had to be something like that, but having him say it out loud…
I started shivering.
He beeped off his phone and ordered, “Keep down, baby, and follow me.”
He walked in a crouch to a dormer window.
When he stopped, he offered me what was around his neck.
I passed off the magazine and took the…whatever they were.
“Night vision,” he explained. “Strap them on, get low, on your belly. Stay low, angled away from the window, but get in a position you can see out,” he said.
I nodded, fumbling with the night vision goggles.
I mean…
Night vision goggles!
“Get a look outside,” he instructed as I kept fumbling. “Lock on one of them. When you do, tell me. Aim the laser pointer at him but don’t turn it on. Only do that when I say go. With me?”
I nodded.
“Words,” he grunted.
“Lock on. Aim pointer. Tell you. Turn on at go. With you.”
He took the goggles from me (I was hopeless), put them on me and said, “It’s gonna be weird. You’ll get used to it.”
Then he clicked them on.
He was right.
It was weird.
But I was too freaked to give a shit at that juncture.
“Belly. Position,” he whispered.
I got down to my belly on the dusty attic floor (Hutch had so little stuff, he didn’t have even that first box up here), angled to the side so I could see out.
Oh God.
Shit.
Shit.
There were five men creeping up to the house, and they were close.
They also had guns. I couldn’t tell if they were rifles or shotguns.
But they were guns.
Big ones.
“Hutch—” his name was shaky.
I looked to him, and he was like me, on his belly angled away from the window on the north side of the house (whereas mine was on the east).
But he had the butt of his rifle to his shoulder aimed out, and his eye was squinted to the sight.
“You’re good. You’re good,” he soothed me. “Lock on.”
Oh God!
I turned back to my window and locked on.
One seemed to break away in the direction of the dog pens.
Another broke away to head up to the front door.
“Please stay quiet, Tonks,” I muttered then, “I’m a go,” I said a little louder to Hutch.
“Good baby, stay locked,” Hutch said. Then I jumped when he boomed, “You’re trespassing! Leave immediately!”
One of the guys holding back aimed his gun at the attic, and it exploded.
It felt like the whole house shook. Debris flew from where the projectile hit the roof. I nearly screamed.
Tonks started barking.
“Go,” Hutch ordered.
I switched on my laser light, and it hit the chest of the guy beside the one who shot at us.
Another one shone through the night on the chest of the guy who shot.
That laser was the serious one.
They froze.
The man closer to the house started running toward it. The outside motion-sensor light came on, blinding me. I tore off my goggles in time to see the one going toward the pens begin to race around to the back of the house.