I laughed softly. He still didn’t recognize me. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea. I also have a pretty good idea what Malone’s going to do to you when he finds out what happened to your gun.”

“Faythe?” The guard started to turn, but stopped when I shoved the barrel of the gun into his back.

“One more word, and you’ll be fighting blood loss and hypothermia. Got it?” He nodded silently, and I had to work to keep my teeth from chattering. “Good. Take off your coat. Slowly.”

The guard slid first one arm, then the other, from his sleeves.

“Drop it, then kick it backward. And keep in mind that if you can take it off one arm at a time, I can put it on the same way. The gun’s still aimed at your back.”

“You’re not gonna shoot me.” He let the jacket fall, then slid it backward with his right foot.

“Haven’t you heard what a crazy bitch I am?”

After that, he had nothing else to say while I bent for the coat and put it on one arm at a time, doing my best to keep the gun aimed, just as I’d promised. “Now, open the door.”

“It’s locked,” he said, and a glance at the shed confirmed that.

“Unlock it. And drop your handcuffs.”

He dug his cuffs from one pocket and dropped them on the ground at his feet, then pulled a key from the other. “Malone’s going to have your head for this,” he said as he twisted the key in the lock, his fingers already red and stiff from the cold.

“Yeah, what’s he going to do, kill me twice?” Of course, death wasn’t what I really had to fear from Malone and his men, but nothing I did or didn’t do was going to change what they wanted from me.

A second later, he pulled the padlock from the shed door.

“Okay, open it and step inside. And don’t touch a motherfucking thing.”

The guard opened the door and stepped in. I followed, only pausing long enough to pull the door closed behind me. The dim light bulb dangling from the ceiling was a shock after the dark of the woods, and I stood for a moment to let my cat eyes adjust. But before they could, I heard shuffling from directly ahead.

“Faythe?”

Marc. And Jace was in the cage beside him.

I forced my eyes open wider and smiled. “Surprise.”

Thirteen

My blood boiled, in spite of the below-freezing temperature, at the sight of Marc and Jace locked up in five-foot-tall animal cages. Like me, they’d been marched out of our cabin without coats, and in separate cages, they couldn’t even huddle together for warmth. After less than two hours in the cold, they were both pale and shivering, and only warmed by the scorching rage clearly burning behind their eyes.

“How’d you get out?” Jace’s teeth chattered as he stood hunched over, fingers curled around the steel-mesh sides of his cage.

“Through the window.” I nudged the guard in the back with his own gun. “Let them out.”

“I don’t have those keys.” He started to turn, but stopped when I shoved him again.

I glanced around the shed and spotted an open, rusty toolbox in one corner, holding a hammer and an assortment of wrenches. “Get the hammer and knock the locks off. One blow each.” Because if anyone heard him, we wouldn’t have time to waste with dainty little taps. “And if you even look like you’re going to hit anything other than those locks, I will shoot you in the back.” I couldn’t kill as easily as Malone’s men seemed to, but I could and would kill in defense of myself, or either of the men in the cages.

“What about Alex?” Marc asked, as the guard picked up the hammer and hesitated, probably trying to decide if I was serious about killing him.

“Come on!” I snapped at the guard, then glanced at Marc. “Alex is a victim of his own stupidity and arrogance.”

“He’s dead?” Jace asked, his voice thick with a mix of regret and relief—they fought on opposing sides, but they shared a mother.

“Just unconscious. Same with the goon outside my window. Thus the rush.” I glared at the guard. “Do it. And if you have to take more than one swing, you’re going to regret it.”

Finally he shrugged, and I took a step back as he swung at the lock on Marc’s cage. The lock popped open, and I breathed a silent sigh of relief. I hadn’t been sure that would work. “Take off the chain, then do the other one.”

The guard set his hammer on top of Marc’s cage and unthreaded the chain as ordered. Still shivering, Marc stepped out of his pen as Malone’s man moved on to free Jace.

“Here.” While the guard unwound the second chain, I pulled one of the guns from my waistband and handed it to Marc. “Just in case.”

When Jace was free, I handed him the cuffs, and he secured the guard’s hands behind his back. “You want to put him in the cage?”

“Yeah, if either of the locks still work.”

“We should gag him, too, or he’ll scream until someone shows up,” Jace said. He examined the locks while Marc scrounged for something to gag him with.

Unfortunately, both of the locks were smashed, but Marc found a roll of shop towels and a roll of duct tape in an old plastic crate. He gagged the guard and taped his ankles together, then shoved him into one of the cages. Jace wound the chain around the lock hasp and the bar. Without the padlock to hold it in place, the guard would probably eventually kick his way free, but with any luck, that wouldn’t be anytime soon.