Page 13 of Idaho

"Okay."

Jo looked over at me. "Help is coming." She didn't look as confident as Thomas had sounded, but I knew she was trying to make me feel better about the situation.

"Let us have her and we'll leave you alone," the man who'd approached me in the bar called out again.

"Let's just go around the block, try to lose them," Paul suggested.

We increased our pace, turning and trying to outdistance them. Jo was texting on her phone, probably updating whoever she'd called about our location. We made it another two blocks before things got worse.

"They're running," Brittney squeaked.

That made us all turn and face the men as they caught up to us. They were grinning as they stopped a short distance away.

"Give her to us, or you're going to fucking regret it," the man repeated, his eyes raking over me.

My nose wrinkled in a cringe of disgust at the thought of going with these men. "There's no need for violence," I told them.

They laughed. It was an ugly sound and I knew then that violence was exactly what they wanted. This didn't feel right. I knew American men could be pushy, but this wasn't like anything I'd heard about. Why was this happening?

"What's it going to be?" the ringleader asked Brad.

"You're fucking insane if you think we're just handing our friend over to you," he replied, glaring at them. His hands balled up into fists at his sides.

This wasn't good. It was going to take Thomas at least thirty minutes to get here, if not more, even with the sparse late-night traffic. I wasn't sure who Jo had called—hopefully the authorities—or how long it would take for them to respond, but they were going to be too late.

A moment later the men proved me right. They spread out and launched themselves at Brad and Paul. I gasped, eyes wide, as someone's fist connected with Brad's face. He stood his ground, swinging back on the man as they began fighting in earnest. Paul was busy with two men, leaving two more to advance toward us. One was the man who'd tried to dance with me.

I looked over at the girls and they looked as scared and angry as I felt. "Leave us alone," I demanded.

The men chuckled, low and deep, causing warning bells to sound in my head.

I took a step backward as the man invaded my space. They were herding us, kind of like the border collies from back home maneuvered sheep. The man in front of me was starting to separate me from the others. I tried to dart around him to get back to the safety of my group, but his long arm reached out and grabbed me around the waist. I wasn't sure what came over me, but I was so angry with him for doing this that I let my, usually contained, temper free on him. I started hitting him anywhere I could. His curses echoing through the night made me grin like a feral cat as I hit him in the throat hard enough to make him wheeze.

When his hand clamped down on my wrist, I leaned forward and sank my teeth into his flesh, biting down as hard as I could. More curses. But then the world was spinning. I gasped when I realized he'd tossed me over his shoulder and was walking away from the fight with me. I pounded my fists on his back, did my best to kick him anywhere I could, but he was too strong. Fear was beginning to seep in and take over my rage. I couldn't let him take me. My heart was roaring in my ears. The sound was so loud and guttural it sounded more like it was nearby than in my mind.

"Eva!"

Jo's scream renewed my fighting. It was hard to breathe with this man's shoulder digging into my diaphragm, but I had to do something. My father and mother hadn't raised a quitter. Suddenly, the man jerked to a stop, then stumbled.

It was my turn to scream as the pavement rushed toward me, or the other way around, but something caught me before I connected. "Oomph," I grunted as steel banded around my body and I was jerked backward into a brick wall. My fight or flight response was in control right now, so when I looked over my shoulder and saw another man there, I did what any sane person would do. I elbowed him as hard as I could in the solar plexus. I wasn't about to let any of these men take me away from the others.

CHAPTER 6

Idaho

We saw the fight as soon as we turned onto the street. Seek had told us where her sister and her friends were walking, and they were impossible to miss. They'd been on the move, trying to avoid what was happening now, but their pursuers clearly hadn't given up. We were about to tip the odds in their favor.

Static and I had been out doing a beer run for the party when Hush called. We had only been a few minutes away, thankfully, because this group of kids was completely outmatched by the men fucking with them. That kind of shit pissed me off.

It hadn't taken me long to park my bike and jump into the fray. Working in the corporate world hadn't left me soft, so I was more than prepared for this fight. Working out and boxing were the way I de-stressed from the job.

I left Static to park the truck he was driving and help the guys in Jo's group. I went after the man carting one of the women away over his shoulder. He wasn't so fucking tough once he was facing me instead of a girl, though she was doing a hell of a job putting up a fight. He was having a hard time walking with how much she was struggling.

I didn't bother to speak. He'd dug his own fucking grave. I didn't have the full details, but I knew the younger carbon copy of Seek a few feet away was her sister, and that these guys were wrong. That was all I needed. The man opened his mouth to say something. I punched him before he had a chance to speak. I hadn't expected him to go down like a sack of fucking potatoes.

Lurching forward, I managed to catch the woman before her face smashed into the pavement as the guy hit with a dull thud. I yanked her back against my chest, holding her protectively as I eyed him, waiting to see if he'd get up. Then she did something I hadn't been expecting. She elbowed me hard enough to cause a whoosh of air to expel from my lungs and went fucking nuts in my arms.

"Whoa!" I said, wrapping my arms around her waist and lifting her off the ground so she couldn't kick me. "I'm not the bad guy here, Sweetheart."