This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(100)

He even rolls his eyes, and I swear he’s lucky I don’t put a bullet between them for that alone.

“I saved—” he begins.

“You lured us in. Diverted fire to convince us you’re innocent. After you massacred a hunting party of settlers.”

“What? Wait. What?”

“Casey?” That’s Dalton. I’m about to ignore him, but he yanks on my jeans leg and says, “Back door.”

He means there’s a second way out. We won’t be trapped in this cavern.

When I hesitate, Dalton sticks his head through and says, “You do realize you’re arguing with this asshole while there’s a sniper out there.”

Point taken.

I twist and get my legs into the opening. Then I’m wriggling backward while trying to keep my gun trained on an exasperated Brady.

After a moment, Dalton just drags me inside. It is indeed a cavern. Not a big one, but there’s a passage big enough for Storm to get through, evidently, because I don’t see her . . . or Jacob and Kenny.

Dalton wants me to go through first this time, and I grant him that, but not before I say, “That stunt with Storm—”

He cuts me off with a kiss, and that startles me enough to stop talking, which may be the point. It’s not just a quick smack of the lips, either, but a deep one, dark with residual fear and confusion, a kiss that says he was scared shitless out there—for all of us—and may still be.

When it breaks, I rest my head on his shoulder and I breathe. Just breathe. Then I inhale and say, “Onward?”

“Yeah,” he says.

I’m turning to go, and I see Brady, his head and shoulders pushed through the opening, paused there, watching us.

Dalton turns on him. “Get the fuck—”

“You’re going to kick me out there to get shot?”

Dalton meets his gaze. “Yes.”

“Fuck you, Sheriff.” Brady pulls through into the cavern and crouches in front of us. “I had nothing to do with what happened to those people. Yeah, I saw it—the tail end of it, when I heard voices and came to investigate. But if you’re saying I massacred—”

“Not them,” I say. “The others.”

“What others?”

“A hunting party two nights ago.”

“I have no idea—”

“Of course you don’t. So where’s your partner?”

“What partner?”

Dalton squeezes my shoulder. “Go with Storm. I’ll handle this.”

“Handle this?” Brady says. “By what, shooting me?”

“If I have to. I’d prefer if you just came along quietly. Saves me having to drag a corpse back to Rockton.”

“And they call me a psychopath? You—”

I grab Brady’s shirtfront, my hand wrapping in it, yanking him forward, and the surprise of that nearly topples him onto me. He tries to jerk back, but he’s crouched in this cavern and can’t get the balance to do more than weakly pull against my hold. I lift my gun and point it at his temple, and that gets him struggling hard, but I have a good grip.

“The person you need to worry about shooting you?” I say. “It’s not Eric. I watched a good friend die in agony because of you. Saw a woman I cared about dead in a river because of you.”

“No, not Val. I did not hurt Val.”

“You took her hostage, you son of a bitch.”

My finger moves to the trigger, and the only reason I don’t pull it? Because another gun barrel flies up. Dalton lifts his gun, and his finger is on the trigger, and I know that if I shoot, so will he. That has nothing to do with agreeing that Brady deserves to die. He cannot stop me from killing Brady, so he will join me. Do something he would never do on his own, and do it to keep me from being the one who kills Oliver Brady, as I killed Blaine Saratori twelve years ago.

I see that gun rise, and I see the resolve on Dalton’s face, and I release my trigger.

“Oliver Brady,” I say. “You’re under arrest. Get your ass through that hole”—I point at the opening where Kenny, Jacob, and Storm have gone—“and if you scream or fight or do anything that calls the attention of that sniper out there, I will shoot you. I swear I will.”

We lock gazes. Hold them. When he tears his away, I see his outrage, the look that says he won’t forget this, that no one treats him this way.

He goes through the hole after me. Dalton follows. There isn’t any sign of Kenny, Jacob, and Storm until we go through another passage. I watch Brady come in, so I witness his first glimpse of Kenny. He sees him . . . and reacts no more than he does to Jacob.

They’re crouched in a cubbyhole not big enough for all of us, and Storm is whimpering. She has no idea what’s going on or what to make of this cave-crawling business. Dalton takes the lead and her leash, and Jacob falls in behind.

The exit is a tight squeeze, and my poor dog cries as she’s being tugged by Dalton and pushed by his brother. But she trusts us and she doesn’t fight, just lets herself be propelled through.

We come out a couple of hundred feet from where we went in. We move as quickly and quietly as we can, through the forest, getting at least a kilometer away. Then Dalton wheels and grabs Brady so fast that Jacob and Kenny dive for cover. But Dalton just puts Brady up against a tree and says, “If you fucking ever tell us you haven’t killed anyone again—”