Page 23 of DFF: Delicate Freakin’ Flower (Family Ties #5)

Chapter Seventeen

Webb

E ddie was already pacing by the window with his arms crossed, a half-smile tugging at his mouth like he still wasn’t over how easily he’d slipped into character.

“I gave them the full show,” he said. “Slurred a bit, scratched my ass, and acted like some half-drunk swamp rat out hunting squirrels. Stumbled up like I didn’t know where I was going’ and asked if they needed any help.”

I leaned against the wall, arms crossed, listening closely.

“They told me to piss off,” he continued with a grin.

“Real polite. But I stuck around and asked if they had any extra cash. Told ’em I was down bad, and I hadn’t even caught anything for dinner.

One of 'em—a tall guy with a bad attitude—handed me fifty bucks and asked if I’d seen any strangers.

He was specific about them being non-locals, maybe deeper in the bayou. ”

“And you said?” I asked.

Eddie’s grin widened. “I laughed and told them the only people who know the bayou live in it. I’ve been out here five years, and I haven’t seen a stranger. Then I added—real casual—'A stranger doesn’t make it out, not alive. This place’ll eat you if you don’t know it.’”

I snorted. “You’re too good at that.”

He shrugged. “They bought it, but they’re on edge and definitely armed. I saw a couple of rifles sitting out in the house. They're not for show either—clean, loaded, and ready.”

I nodded grimly. “That tracks. I almost got caught by the two who came up behind your position.”

Gabby was at the stove, fiddling with the kettle. She glanced over. “I saw them, they stopped right in front of where I was hiding.”

I straightened instantly. “Wait—what? How close did they get?”

“They didn’t see me,” she confirmed, reaching for the burner switch, "but they got about two feet away from me."

My heart stopped. “Gabby—don’t?—”

I crossed the room in two strides and gently batted her hand away from the knob. “No fires, remember. We can’t risk smoke or light right now, especially the type you’re likely to start.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You gonna make the coffee then?”

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation, already grabbing the percolator and doing it the quiet, no-flame way with the backup camping burner we kept for emergencies.

She moved to lean on the counter, arms folded loosely across her chest. “They were both armed. I saw sidearms, and one of them had an ankle bulge—backup piece, probably.”

I met Eddie’s eyes across the room. He gave a sharp nod. “They’re serious. We're not dealing with amateurs.”

“We’re not lighting anything after sunset.” My voice was low and final. “No fire and no lights from now on. Moonlight through the windows only.”

“I’ll put the drone up every few hours overnight,” Eddie added, pulling his phone from his back pocket to check battery levels. “Quick sweeps and high altitude to keep it silent. We’ll take shifts monitoring movement.”

“We also need to keep an eye on the pro-grade security they’ve got at that house.” I set the percolator on the burner and watched it closely. “Their perimeter’s too clean. There are no trip alarms and no DIY setups. Just sensors.”

“Well,” Gabby said drily, “that’s what the string and cans are for.”

I turned to her, smiling despite everything. “Old school.”

She grinned back at me. “They're reliable. If tech fails, a metal clatter will still wake someone up.”

The room went quiet for a beat, the only noise the soft hiss of the burner and the occasional creak of the old floorboards. I moved to Gabby without thinking, wrapping my arms around her from behind. She leaned into it, warm and solid against me, and I pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

“No one’s gonna hurt you,” I murmured. “We’re gonna make damn sure of that.”

She sighed, her hands resting lightly over mine. “I’m past the point of worrying about myself.”

I frowned and leaned down until my mouth brushed her ear. “Then what?”

“I’m worried about you two,” she admitted softly, tilting her head back against my shoulder. “You’re throwing yourselves into this like it’s nothing. And I’m just… waiting for something to go wrong, I guess.”

“It won’t.” My voice didn’t carry the conviction I wanted it to. “Not if we keep our heads on straight.”

“I trust you,” she whispered. “That’s not the problem. It’s them I don’t trust.”

She was right to worry, and that made me tighten my hold just a little.

Because the closer this got—the more real it became—the more I had that same gut-deep feeling I used to get before a fight: something was coming.

By the time the sun started dipping low, the house was a shadow of itself.

Eddie had already taped over every window with trash bags, dust sheets, duct tape, old towels, whatever we could find that wouldn’t let a sliver of light leak out. Gabby had dug out candles and flashlights that we stashed under the table for emergencies.

We moved through the house like soldiers prepping a bunker. There would be no talking unless absolutely necessary tonight, no unnecessary movement after dark, and no lights.

I double-checked the locks on the doors, then wedged a chair under the back door handle for good measure. Eddie had taken his drone outside before the last of the light faded and was already watching the feed on his tablet, propped on the coffee table beside an open map of the area.

Gabby was near the front window, crouched and silent, slowly setting her “low-tech alarm system” into place—fishing line strung between nails, looped through rings of bottle caps and the occasional can.

It was smart and light enough not to catch attention but loud enough to warn us if anything tripped it.

When she finished, she came to stand beside me, dusting her palms on her jeans.

“Silent mode,” she noted, glancing around. “I feel like we’re in a horror movie. One of the good ones.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” I suggested. “No jump scares, and no sudden music stings.”

She gave me a slight smirk, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Eddie came up behind us. “Drone’s on a twenty-minute loop. I've kept it high so that it's quiet, and it's currently sweeping a three-mile radius. So far, we’re clear.”

“That won’t last,” I said. “They’ll move again tonight.”

“We’re ready,” he confirmed, tapping the side of his holster.

I nodded and turned to Gabby. “Bedroom’s the safest space for now. It's in the center of the house and farthest from the windows.”

“I’m not hiding in the closet,” she huffed, giving me a look.

“I didn’t say the closet,” I pointed out, holding back a smile. “Just stick close.”

She hesitated, then nodded, her voice quieter now. “I don’t like how quiet it is out there. It feels wrong.”

“It is wrong,” Eddie agreed, crossing back to the tablet. “Predators don’t always make noise.”

That sat heavy in the air while we dimmed what else we could and made sure we'd blocked out every last sliver of light.

Even the blinking electronics were covered.

We moved through the house now with only the moonlight slipping through the slats in the porch boards or the cracks in the attic vent.

The world outside had gone still—unnaturally so—and the bayou had gone silent.

No frogs. No crickets. Not even the rustling of leaves.

I checked my watch. 9:18 PM. It was too early for sleep but too late to shake the feeling crawling down my spine.

Gabby sat cross-legged on the floor beside the couch, arms around her knees, staring out at nothing. She didn’t say a word, but her hand found mine when I sat down beside her, and she squeezed. Just once.

We stayed like that for a while—quiet, watchful, waiting. And then the night pressed in, heavy and sharp as a blade.

The soft drone feed cast a faint blue glow across Eddie’s face as we all crouched in the living room, shadows pooled deep in every corner. I kept my eyes on the screen, but the drone still wasn't picking up anything of interest. Just trees and brush and empty paths winding through the dark.

Too quiet. Too easy.

It wasn’t the drone that warned us in the end. It was the faintest clink of metal—tin on tin—from the left side of the porch from one of Gabby’s homemade alarms.

I froze, my eyes snapping to Eddie’s, but he was already muting the drone and leaning forward.

Gabby moved without a word, crawling toward the front of the house like a shadow with elbows. She disappeared into the small storage nook by the door, and I could just make out the shapes of old cans and boxes being nudged around.

A moment later, the rank stench of rotting food hit us.

Eddie gagged quietly beside me. “What the?—”

Gabby returned, dragging herself low and fast across the floor, face a little pale.

“What was that?” I hissed.

“Out-of-date catfish chunks. Don’t ask, and I won't ask you why the shit your family have them in the first place.”

I gestured for her to stay down and led her toward the table where we’d stashed our weapons. Pressing my back to the wall, I reached up and pulled my sidearm free from its holster on the table’s underside. I clicked the safety off, ready for whatever happened.

Then I hummed a low, short note. Eddie tapped the floor five times in reply. I nodded uselessly, but it was instinctive. He'd picked up five people closing in on the drone.

The tension in my chest tightened as the doorknob creaked, then the front door swung open.

I exhaled and waited, finger tight on the trigger as two of them stepped inside. They moved fast, rifles slung low, their flashlights taped and angled like they’d done this before. The door clicked softly shut behind them, but we didn’t give them the chance to get far.

I lunged first, grabbing the front guy by the arm, and yanked him forward hard enough to slam him into the wall. Eddie dropped the second with a shoulder tackle that sent him sprawling onto the floor, his gun skittering away.

The fight was short, brutal, and as quiet as we could make it. I caught a punch to the side and drove my knee into the guy’s stomach, slamming his head against the floor to knock him out.

Across the room, Gabby was hissing through her teeth.

One of the men had elbowed her in the ribs while Eddie was throwing him down.

Before I could react and move her to another part of the room, she was already crawling out the back door.

I swore under my breath as I punched the guy again, but I had to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Gabby

The night air slapped me in the face as I belly-crawled through the grass toward the stash of expired food I’d tucked under the porch weeks ago.

I cracked a can of something I had hoped was fish, gagged at the oily funk rolling out of it, and chucked it, along with the catfish chunks, straight into the bushes.

I grabbed another one, and then that can went flying, then another one followed it. Then, a fourth one landed with a wet plop on the grass.

I heard footsteps—heavy, hurried, and closing in fast. Each one pounded against the ground with purpose, growing louder with every second.

I reached down to my hip, curled my fingers around Tinkerbell—my compact pistol, sweet and deadly—and held my breath.

“They say it smells like something died out here,” one of them rumbled.

That’s because something did, probably multiple somethings, I thought grimly.

I ducked behind the porch wall just as a boot came down hard—right on my foot. I yelped, too quiet to carry, and looked up as one of the men’s eyes met mine. I didn’t think, I just acted as was the norm for me.

Cracking open another can of fish so rotten it could be classified as chemical warfare, I dumped it on him before he could register what his eyes were seeing.

He howled and began gagging as he clawed at his face, and I took advantage of his distraction and shoved him off the edge of the porch.

The behemoth sausage landed on his back with a loud thud and groan.

Then, the rustling started. Raccoons, at least three of them, eyes gleaming, shuffling out of the bushes like they’d been summoned. And they totally swarmed him. Not biting—yet—but swiping and scrambling for the fish.

“ What the fuck —” the guy screamed, trying to fend them off. "Help! Rabies!"

I stood up and delivered a sharp kick to the side of his head, and he slumped out cold.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered to the raccoons, tossing one a Goldfish cracker from my pocket as a bonus.

Two other men rushed toward the noise and stopped when they saw the mess. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he hissed. “I told you we shouldn’t have brought him.”

They picked up the unconscious guy and shook him awake. “What the hell happened?”

He blinked, dazed. “There was... someone. A girl?—”

“Shut up and stay here. Watch the perimeter, and for fuck's sake, find a way to wash yourself off. You stink.”

“And the other two?” another asked, apparently unfazed by the stench.

"What other two?" Stinky sausage slurred.

"The ones who came with us."

“No idea.”

They left him slumped by the porch as they moved into the house. The moment their backs were turned, I crept after them—barefoot and silent.

Webb

The door creaked open again, and two men burst in—tense, alert, and their rifles already raised and sweeping the room. They both passed us blindly, their incompetence stinking like Gabby's fishy weapons.

Eddie and I moved instinctively, our reactions perfectly in sync. He veered left, and I darted right, both of us hugging the walls as we searched for cover and angles.

Then, a third man stepped through the doorway.

His movements were slower and more deliberate.

There was something different about him—he didn’t storm in like the others, he assessed the room and scanned it.

And when his eyes locked onto the movement—on me—his hand started to shift toward the holster at his side.

Crack!

He staggered forward, eyes wide in surprise, and then dropped like a rock. Behind him stood Gabby, pistol in hand, smoke trailing from the barrel, expression dark and calm.

“Hey, boys,” she said quietly, stepping over the body. “Hope I didn’t miss the fun.”

I just stared for a second, gauging her reaction to shooting someone, then nodded, the corner of my mouth twitching.

“Perfect timing.”