Dannika Dark - Seven Years

“Stop it! You’re scaring her.”

Dad dropped the belt and pulled something from the back of his pants. He aimed a gun at me, and Maizy started to cry. “Think she’ll tell me if I put a hole in your leg?”

That’s when I truly saw my dad for the man he was. As he stared down the barrel of the gun, it allowed me to see the very last thing his victims saw. How many? Were they innocent? I thought about my mother in hysterics, trying to protect her young baby from harm. Was he holding me at the time so I could watch?

“Why did you have to kill my mother?” Pain surfaced unexpectedly in my words, slicing across my tongue like razorblades as I felt sorrow for a woman I would never know.

His gun slightly lowered and a memory flickered in his eyes. “It was also supposed to be you. My orders were that no one be left alive. She twisted around to cover you up, so I shot her in the back. I thought the bullet went through and killed you too, but she just fell over you, bleeding. I rolled her off but didn’t have it in me to kill an infant. You were covered in blood, and hell, your mother always wanted a girl.”

Maizy’s face was distraught and her words were barely a whine as they came through her tears. “Lexi, I want Mommy.”

Dad’s face cracked for a moment and he lowered his eyes, staring vacantly at the floor. I seized the opportunity and rushed forward.

He fired the gun.

Pain bit through my right arm and I clutched the wound with my other hand. The noise was so frightening that Maizy wriggled loose and ran out the front door. Warm liquid oozed between my fingers and snaked down my arm.

“Now do as I told you and get in there,” he said, shaking the gun.

I never imagined I’d be in a position of deciding my sister’s fate. He was unstable and likely to do something crazy if I didn’t comply. But if I obeyed him, that meant he would take her. The shock of my father shooting me hadn’t quite surfaced.

“If she hid the diamonds in the house and you leave, how do you think you’re going to get them back? You seem to think Maizy went home with Mom, but that’s not what happened. This is the only place she’s been. The stones are here somewhere.”

Which threw a giant wrench in his plans.

A loud engine cut off out front and I released a nervous breath. My dad picked up the belt and stalked toward the door with his gun in hand. I charged after him, fearing Austin or my mom would walk into the house, unsuspecting.

I tackled him in the hallway and we struggled, but the man was two inches taller and a hundred pounds stronger. He slammed me against the wall and I kicked him in the leg so hard he doubled over. Through the open door, a vision of horror consumed me.

McNeal patiently waited out front with Maizy in his arms. He was in uniform, except for the hat, and Maizy had her arms and legs wrapped around him. We used to tell Maizy if she ever got lost or separated from us to look for someone in uniform. I thought McNeal lied about working in law enforcement, covering up his real job. It sickened me to see he actually did work for them, and little did the humans know they had one of the most corrupt men masquerading as a good guy.

She had no idea she had just run into the arms of the enemy.

“Nice to see you again, Nelson Knight. Come on out and let’s talk for a spell.”

I dizzily leaned against a post, feeling close to throwing up. My dad aimed the gun at McNeal and my little sister.

“You killed my boy,” he growled, holding the gun steady and straight.

“Think your gun is really going to do anything, Nelson? We both know you’re just wasting your bullets on a Mage. Unless of course, you have another target,” he said, gently twisting left and right, rocking my sister.

Maizy had on her pink princess skirt with the white tights. The shirt didn’t match because it was yellow with cartoon characters on the front. She had spilled tomato sauce on her shirt and it was the only clean one I could find. I don’t know why I noticed something so trivial, but my mind memorized every insignificant detail. The way the sunlight sifted through the trees and picked up the gold in her hair and the way her cheek rested on his shoulder as she sucked her thumb.

Maizy hadn’t sucked her thumb since she was three years old and I bribed her with gum drops. Seeing that image disturbed me more than anything else.

I walked right past my father and stood between them, because I’d be damned if a shaky hand led to my sister getting shot. My dad spat curses at me, but I continued walking toward the Mage.

“Give me my sister,” I demanded.

“I believe I’m owed a few sparklies for this one.”

“Let me have her and I’ll help you,” I said. “Only Maizy knows where she put them, and she’s not going to talk to either of you, especially with you scaring her the way you are. Please trust me.”

“I don’t trust Shifters,” he said with a curl in his lip. “You’re nothing but a bunch of breeding cockroaches that need to be exterminated.”

Out of the corner of my eye, something moved behind the trees to my right. I kept my eyes locked on McNeal and my palms up. “I’ll promise anything you want. You don’t have to trust me, but I’ll get her to talk. She’ll listen, won’t you, Maze?”

Her blue eyes turned in my direction, glistening with tears and innocence.

McNeal bent down and set her feet on the ground, slowly rising up with a devilish grin.

“She’s all yours,” he said, the words slow and enigmatic.

Austin tossed the last can of empty paint into an oversized trash bag . The late afternoon sun smeared an orange trail of light on the porch, and all the windows on the lower floor were kept open after Ben inadvertently got high in the bathroom from the paint fumes. They couldn’t have asked for better weather, but the manual labor made it miserable.

He’d gone outside to spray down the mud they’d tracked on the porch when Denver grabbed the hose and blasted a cold shot of water in his face.

“Jesus!” he yelled with a laugh. “Cut it out.” Austin threw up his right arm to block, but he could hardly complain because it felt great. Denver aimed the nozzle straight up in the air and it showered them with water.

“You boys get away from the house. You’re going to get spots all over the windows I just cleaned,” Lynn yelled from inside.

“Damn,” Denver breathed, clicking the nozzle off. “Our mom would really like that woman. Those two were probably separated at birth.” He strolled to the end of the porch and sat down, taking off his sneakers and spraying his feet to cool them off. “Why is it women can never let a man have any fun? They just want to fuss about something.”

“They’re practical,” Austin said, shaking off some of the water droplets from his hair. “We live in the moment and they think about what’s coming. If they didn’t keep us in check, we’d fuck up the planet.”

“Yeah, well, I still think that cooling off and preventing a heatstroke is more practical than spots on the windows,” he complained as a rainbow formed in the fine mist rising from the green hose.

Denver had always been the free spirit of the family—untamable. Truthfully, Austin didn’t really want to break him. Not the way most Packmasters would. Denver loved people and that’s why he worked as a bartender. His wolf was the only one who needed an attitude adjustment.

Jericho was the seducer in the family, although it never made sense because the man looked like he hardly showered. Denver was different. He could have any woman out there—he’d obviously hijacked all the best genes in the family. A masculine face combined with a mischievous smile won them over every time. But during their outings at the Shifter bar, he mostly hung out at the pool tables. He flirted like nobody’s business, but was too damn selective to get serious. Who knows, maybe he didn’t think they were good enough for him. Denver was only fifteen years older than Austin, although he looked younger.