Chapter Eleven

Felicity tried to scramble back and run in the opposite direction, but Ace was too quick. His arm snaked in and grabbed her by the shirtfront.

“Not so fast.” Ace laughed and the sound made her stomach turn in utter terror.

She wanted to fight him, but the gun pressed to Gage’s temple kept her frozen in fear. Even if he didn’t want to kill his own son, any struggling from her could have him pulling the trigger—purposefully or accidentally.

Then there was her own father standing in the yard, a much larger gun than Ace’s slung over his arm. She hadn’t seen him in years, didn’t recognize him on a visual level, but she knew it was him.

Ace gave her shirt a jerk, sending her pitching forward. The weight of the backpack added to her inelegant loss of balance, and she landed hard on the ground. She struggled to get up. Maybe she could run for help? But that would leave Gage here. Alone with them.

Her father moved close and stood over her. He didn’t press the gun to her temple like Ace had his to Gage, but he pointed it at her all the same.

“Can you believe it, son?” Ace was saying to Gage, grinning from ear to ear even with a gun pressed to his own son’s temple. “A tornado busted me out of jail. A tornado. Can you understand the absolute significance of that divine intervention?”

“I’m sure you’ll enlighten me whether I want you to or not.”

“When my parents left me to die, it was the land that protected me, built me. Now it’s the land, the fearsome power of this land, that’s given me my freedom back after my sons were too weak, too soft to do what they were meant to do.”

Felicity shuddered at the words, at how reasonable they sounded to her. She understood what it felt like to be made new by the awe-inspiring landscape around them. The preacher-like way he spoke those words had her listening, rapt. Understanding.

She had something in common with Ace Wyatt. What a horrible, horrible thought.

“You think it’s a weakness not to be you, Ace. But you’re outnumbered, because the sane ones among us consider it a strength to be able to battle back our worst impulses. To not believe ourselves the ultimate judge, jury and executioner.”

Ace cocked his head as he studied Gage. “A nice story you six have told yourselves. But there are six of you. One of you will have to face the music. Or the end will come.”

“Endings always come. And the most poetic ending for you will be rotting in a cell for the rest of your insane life.”

“The land provides. It provides the willing and the worthy, and it has provided me my freedom, again.”

He sounded so rational, so utterly sure, Felicity had to remind herself he was insane. Evil, surely, if he’d killed people and done some of the things the Wyatts said he did.

“Then, after the land anoints me yet again, frees and provides and gives to me, yet again, I’m lucky enough to stumble upon exactly who I was figuring out how to find.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck,” Gage said, his voice cool and detached as if a deadly weapon wasn’t pressed to his head.

Ace chuckled. “Oh, I believe in it. I also believe it favors the prepared and anointed. I am both. What are you?”

Gage muttered disparagingly under his breath. He was staring straight ahead so he couldn’t see the way Ace’s eyes gleamed.

Crazy. Evil. Felicity didn’t know what it was, but that sheen made everything inside of her ice, made the hair on her arms and back of her neck stand up on end. All that reason she’d almost thought he’d been speaking evaporated when she looked at him.

She focused on breathing evenly in an effort to keep panic at bay. She had to find a way to survive this. A way for both of them to survive their fathers.

There wasn’t much that could be done with Ace holding a gun to Gage’s head and her father pointing a gun at her.

Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Think.

The Wyatt brothers had always said their father didn’t want them dead, or they’d be dead. There were multiple theories, though most centered on the idea Ace Wyatt wanted slow, painful revenge on his sons, not just a violent death.

The likelihood of Ace actually pulling the trigger was low. And since neither had shot her, maybe they didn’t want her dead, either.

Still, she could visualize Ace shooting Gage—see it happening before her, and that kept her from moving. From hoping.

Two against two might have been a fair fight if she had a weapon of her own, but all she had was a backpacking knife stuffed deep within the pack on her back. Was there any way to get it without drawing attention to herself? And even if there was, what was the point of bringing a knife to a gunfight?

“I don’t know what brand-new break you’ve had with reality,” Gage drawled, “but—”

Ace’s free hand jabbed out so fast Felicity barely saw it. She wasn’t even sure where the punch landed, only that it had Gage gasping for air and falling to his knees.

“You weren’t next on my list, Gage. But you mixed yourself up with this one and messed up my plan. You know how I feel when people mess up my plan.”

The only thing that came from Gage was horrible gasping noises as if he was struggling to breathe.

Without fully realizing she was doing it, she moved toward him. Until an excruciating pain in her hand stopped her. She looked at the source of the crushing, terrifying pain and found her father’s boot pressing harder and harder against her hand.

“You stay put,” he said.

She tried not to sob, not to react, but he ground the boot harder against her hand. He was going to break her fingers with much more pressure. The only thing currently saving her was the give of the soil after the rain.

“Got it?” he demanded, jabbing her side with his gun.

She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. But she didn’t make a noise.

The pressure eased off her hand, and she wanted to sob with as much relief as throbbing pain, but she breathed through it.

“Felicity, I need you to break your promise to me,” Gage said, his voice clear and calm, which earned him another punch from Ace, right against the throat.

Her promise? Her promise. To stay together no matter what. No. No, she couldn’t break it. She couldn’t leave him here.

But as he gasped for air against his father’s horrifying blows, she realized that in this case, splitting up was the only chance they had. Ace would have somewhere to take them, somewhere to torture them.

If she could get away, she could get all the Wyatts here. She could save Gage. She didn’t want to leave him with Ace, even for a second. But when they’d promised each other to stick together that had been when Ace was out there. When the threat was from the outside, not the inside.

She couldn’t save Gage with brute strength, but if she could get away she might be able to save him some other way.

She met his gaze. And nodded.


GAGE DIDNT LET the nerves show, didn’t let on how afraid he was because God knew this was going to hurt.

But she’d be safe—or safer. It was the only chance he had to survive. Maybe he wouldn’t, but if she was safe that would be okay.

So, he had to make sure he did enough damage to Ace that Michael came over to save him. He had to give Felicity enough time to really run.

The two men holding guns on them would kill her, no doubt. They’d kill him, too, but Ace would want to make it hurt first. Maybe he’d want it to hurt for Felicity, too, since she’d gotten in Ace’s way with Nina and Cody, but that only made her being here, in their grasp, that much more dangerous.

“Have you had your dramatic mom—”

Gage interrupted his father’s comment by throwing his head backward, and straight into his father’s.

It rang his bell—stars dancing and pain radiating down to his toes, but the gun dropped from his temple. Gage took the opportunity to pitch his body forward hoping his legs would hold him.

He still had the damn pack on his back and wished he’d had the foresight to drop it, but when Michael came charging at him, Gage managed to get an arm out of the strap and use it as enough of a force to knock the gun pointed at him from Michael’s hands.

Gage didn’t stop to look and see if Felicity ran. There wasn’t time for him to look, so he just had to trust that she’d understood him and that she’d nodded because she knew she was going to run.

Michael swore at him and charged.

Felicity’s father did not appear to be the smartest man, but he had fists like mallets, and was all bulk and muscle. Though he’d lost his gun, he used his body as a weapon against Gage, landing two punches to the gut before Gage could block them.

Gage was not a small man, but he felt like one for a second. Michael making him feel small only reminded him that Felicity had been small. A tiny girl and this man had used his fists on her—enough that protective services had intervened—which was a bit of a feat in isolated rural areas with low government funds.

Gage used that rage, that utter disgust to propel him forward with a blow that knocked Michael back two steps.

A gunshot rang out too close, but no blast of pain followed the noise. Still, Gage knew well enough Ace wouldn’t miss twice. Even to forward his precious plans.

So Gage grappled with Michael, finally landing a knee to the most vulnerable part of his attacker. He managed to flip him off and then got to his feet, only to come face-to-face with Ace’s gun barrel.

“Well, shoot me then,” Gage snarled. His mouth was bleeding, and God knew what other parts of him were bleeding and broken. Every cell of his body hurt, and this was all so pointless.

Not pointless. Felicity is gone. He didn’t dare look around and verify. He just willed it.

Ace’s own face was bleeding, and Gage got morbid satisfaction from knowing his head had caused that gash on Ace’s brow.

Ace’s gaze whipped behind Michael, from the gun that had fallen to the ground, to the pack that had been ripped from Gage’s back.

“You let her go?” Ace growled.

Michael was struggling to get to his feet. “He practically knocked you out. I had to—”

“You worthless moron! Go after her! Go!”

Gage couldn’t help smiling even as blood dripped down his face. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard Ace sound so furiously disgusted. Usually his anger was deadly, eerie calm, but Gage had clearly put quite the crimp in Ace’s plans.

Who wouldn’t grin at that? Especially as Michael scrambled to retrieve the gun and then ran off more in panic than with any thought as to which way Felicity had gone.

She’d be faster and far more knowledgeable of the terrain. She was gone and on her way to find help. Gage had to believe it.

“What are you smiling ab...” Ace trailed off, rage and disgust sinking into the lines on his face.

“Jail didn’t agree with you, Daddy,” Gage offered, hoping to throw Ace off.

“You care about her.” Ace sneered. “What is it about you boys? Where did I go so wrong? Weak. Stupid. Undone by any woman who opens her legs.”

Gage couldn’t keep the easy grin on his face, and it morphed into a sneer. But he bit his tongue to keep from saying anything that might give Ace more ammunition to rail against and agitate Gage into making a deadly misstep.

“What a mistake you’ve made,” Ace whispered, a vicious fury dancing in his eyes, that Gage only remembered seeing once before—when Ace had realized Cody had escaped.

Jamison had worked hard to get Cody, the youngest of the six boys, out from the Sons before he had to go through the ritual they’d all had to survive on their seventh birthdays. Jamison had managed, managed so well Ace had assumed Grandma Pauline had paid one of his men to betray him. He’d never suspected Jamison.

At first.

That moment Ace had learned Cody was safe and out of his grip, Gage had seen this exact look. And known he’d be lucky to survive it.

But he had then, why couldn’t he now?

Which was the last thought he had before pain exploded at the side of his head, and the world went dark.