Page 2

“SHIT!”

My new attacker released me reflexively, shoving me away from his body. I whirled to face him, just as the warm, coppery taste of blood filled my mouth…

CRASH!

I threw both arms over my face protectively as my kitchen window suddenly exploded inward. Glass and broken bits of the frame rained everywhere. It scattered across the floor, glinting over my countertops like jagged diamonds in the moonlight.

“GRAB HER!”

Another man took hold of my arms, from somewhere off to one side. Like the man I’d bitten, he wasn’t wearing gloves. Wasn’t wearing black…

“Get her out of here! Now, before—”

He never got to finish his sentence. The man from the bedroom came crashing over him, tacking him from behind. I saw kicks and punches, as the two figures scuffled across the floor. One of them pulled a knife. The other… a sleek black pistol.

Dallas!

I twisted hard, but I was too wrapped up. Whoever held me was strong — amazingly strong — maybe even stronger than my brother, Connor.

Only my brother wasn’t here. And that’s because my brother was dead.

CRACK!

A shot rang out. It was loud and impossibly obnoxious in my tiny kitchen, the yellow starburst from the pistol’s muzzle flaring brightly. For a second it illuminated the entire room, and I could see two more men. They were scuffling as well, throwing each other up against the wall even as the others writhed around on the debris-strewn floor…

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Darkness reigned again for a moment, and then suddenly I was outside. I could feel the cool desert wind, the bite in the air. I was still struggling, still kicking and screaming, but it was already too late. I was being dragged. Dragged down my side lawn…

… to where a large black truck was waiting, doors already open.

“NOOO!”

I kicked again, this time directing my foot downward. It stomped hard on the boot of the man who had me, and I felt his grip relax ever so slightly.

“LET GO OF…”

Another stomp, and this time I remembered to pull back with my toes. The bone of my heel cracked down hard, hopefully shattering the metatarsus of whoever owned that big, military-style boot.

“OWW… FUCK!”

The hands gripping my arms grew tighter, the fingers screwing into painful claws. Suddenly I was no longer attached to the groun

d — I was being lifted into the air, carried that last ten or twenty feet before being thrown, like a sack of potatoes, into the back of the ominous-looking truck.

“Motherfu--”

I bounced inside, just as two more men came sprinting from the house, chased by the men in black. They slid in quickly, one right beside me, the other into the passenger seat.

Both swung the doors closed, divorcing us from the chaos outside.

“GO GO GO!”

With the screech of tires and a shower of gravel, we took off down the street. I was surrounded by my captors now. The three of them and me.

This is it, the voice in my head told me. You’re finished.

I resisted one last time, trying to twist free. Once more, I was pinned. Grabbed by the wrists.