“Who does this bitch belong to?”

Well, that pissed me off.

Elijah started laughing, but he pointed to Luke. “Not sure how she’s going to handle being called that, but she belongs to Pretty Boy here.”

Luke threw him a dark look, moving forward so he was standing slightly in front of Elijah. “She belongs to me.”

Brute dragged me to face him again. He breathed on me, his face too close now. “Is that true? You’re a pretty thing.” His free hand touched my cheek.

I held still, ignoring the growing need to kick this guy in the nuts. It was clawing inside me, crawling to the surface, and I started to concentrate on keeping my calm. I could feel Luke’s anger mounting at the same time. Glancing at him through the corner of my eyes, he was like a statue. His hands were loose at his sides, but his head was lowered like he was getting ready to charge. Luke didn’t have the explosive burst of energy like Elijah did, but he was just as dangerous. Luke thought out his moves. Each punch he threw was precise and delivered to weaken his opponent. If he had a knife, I would’ve started to worry. He would’ve gone for Brute’s jugular, and that would be a whole other set of problems. As it was, I finally spied a knife. There was a girl right behind Brute who held one. It was dangling from her fingers, right next to her leg, and judging from the alarm in her eyes, I didn’t think she knew how to use it.

Luke said from behind me, “Let her go.” His voice was calm and low, but a shiver went down my spine. He was close to making his move. I looked back at him. Elijah had moved to stand next to him and watched him carefully, too. When Brute heard the new threat, his head went back up.

He narrowed his eyes, and his hand dropped from my face. “Or what, Pretty Boy? I don’t know you, but you’d look more comfortable being in some fancy magazine than here with the big boys.”

Then I heard something click at the back of the fence. I turned my head, narrowly missing clocking Brute square in the face. There was a door to the yard and Kelly stuck a hand through it, waving at me. That was her signal. I hadn’t asked for her to find a door, but I had hoped there would be one. She just saved us a lot of time. And Emerson was right there.

It was time.

Brute was breathing down on me, still gripping my arm firmly. He lifted me, making me stretch to stand on my tiptoes. I looked right at Luke, then Elijah. Both saw the change in me and narrowed their eyes. They shared a questioning look, but I didn’t care. I hoped they would follow my lead. I closed my eyes, remembering the times I fought with Braden.

“You have such a hard head!” he had shouted one time after I head-butted him. He’d been right. I did. Not much could hurt my skull. I had laughed then, sticking my tongue out at him.

“And I’ll do it every time you wrestle me. Get ready for headaches, Braden!”

He had yelled back, but ran off, yelling for our mom.

“Here’s one for my brother.” I reared back and brought my forehead back as hard as possible into Brute’s face.

Crying out, he dropped me instantly as he bent forward and cupped his head with both of his hands. No one moved for a second. They were all shocked, but I wasn’t. I darted forward, plucked the knife from the girl’s fingers and immediately started backing up. I was in front of Luke before anyone thought to run after us, but I kept backing into him.

I yelled to Elijah, “Grab Emerson. There’s a car for us back there!”

Then everything happened at once. Everyone realized what had happened. Luke’s hands gripped my sides, but he switched our positions immediately. He took the knife from me and blocked me instead, moving backwards. Then we both darted for the fence.

Elijah had grabbed Emerson. He had a firm hold on his arm, and he dragged him to the fence, but Emerson was still dazed. He didn’t know what was going on, so Luke went to him and grabbed the other side. Both of them hoisted Emerson in the air. They half-dragged and half-carried him the entire way. I held open the fence door. As soon as they were through, I slammed it shut, but I couldn’t lock it.

“Fuck!” I screamed.

“We don’t have time!” Luke yelled at me as he and Eli threw Emerson into the back of the car. They both climbed inside, and Kelly yelled from her window, pounding the steering wheel, “Come on, Bri!”

Spying a chair, I wedged it underneath the handle. As soon as I did, they were there. I heard shouts from the other side and then someone ordered, “Go around the back. Block their car in!”

“Let’s go!”

I sprinted and dove for the seat.

Kelly pressed her foot down on the accelerator, flooring it before I even shut my door.

We got out of the alley just as they were running for their cars.

Kelly was a badass driver. She ducked down side streets, through alleys, and took us on a drive down streets I didn’t know existed in Grant West, but no one had followed us. When we finally relaxed, Emerson farted.

“Seriously.” I groaned, covering my nose.

Kelly was hunched forward, her knuckles almost white as she held the steering wheel with a death grip. A laugh fell out of her, and she whispered, almost to herself, “You guys are nuts.”

“Yes, nuts.” Elijah was waving his hand in the air. “That’s apparently what Em ate last. Shit, man. Seriously.”

Emerson laughed, still sounding high as a kite. “Sorry, guys. There were peanuts everywhere. They were talking to me.”

“I’m sure,” Luke griped. “Move over, come on. Kelly, you need a bigger car. Three guys in the backseat is not comfortable.”