Chapter Eighteen

Jace felt the stun gun glance off the back of his neck. Not full-on contact with his skin but it was more than enough to cause the pain to shoot through him.

God-awful pain that tore through his entire body.

His muscles contracted, hard and fast. He lost all control. Of his hands.

Of his gun.

Kit , he shouted in his mind. If he was out of the picture, and he clearly was, then she could be killed.

Jace tried to lift his arm and elbow his attacker. An attacker he couldn't even see. But he tried to aim anyway.

And he failed.

He cursed himself for letting this happen, and he tried once again to move. This time, he managed it. Then, Jace realized he wasn't the one responsible for the movement.

Kit was.

She'd latched onto his shoulder and was dragging him across the seat toward her. Away from the attacker. Away from the window. Once she had some space to maneuver, she reached over and yanked the door closed and locked it.

"You're all right," she muttered though her voice let him know that was a big-assed lie. She was trembling and probably scared, but he thought he saw some anger on her face, too.

"Deanna," Kit said like profanity.

Jace still couldn't move, and his vision was blurred, but he finally saw the woman right next to the SUV's window. It was Deanna all right. And she looked seriously pissed. At the moment, she definitely wasn't going with that damsel in distress act that she'd been pulling just minutes earlier.

Deanna tossed the stun gun aside and lifted a real gun.

"You idiot," Deanna snarled. "Why can't you just make this easy and die?"

Jace thought she meant that for both Kit and him, and that's when he realized why Deanna had stunned him rather than just shoot him. Her angle had been off for a kill shot. It would have been a huge risk if she'd missed because Jace could have grabbed her and overpowered her. But this way, she only had to touch any part of him with the stun gun, and it would immobilize him.

So Deanna could then shoot them.

The woman definitely hadn't wanted Kit to get to the door and close it so again, but that apparently wasn't going to stop Deanna.

The woman fired into the window.

The glass cracked but held.

Deanna made a sharp sound of pain, and even through the spiderweb fractures of the glass, he could see her clamp her hand over her ears. Apparently, she hadn't expected it to be so loud.

Good.

Jace hoped it caused her so much pain that she couldn't fire again. Because if she did, eventually the shots would rip right through the glass.

And that wasn't the only danger.

No. Not even close.

Jace could hear that damn Hummer again. And he was pretty sure it was revving up to ram into them. Another collision would almost certainly damage the engine enough, and that in turn would make Kit and him even more sitting ducks than they already were.

"Try to hold onto something," Kit insisted, her words tumbling out with her gusting breaths.

It was the only warning that Jace got before Kit climbed over him, squeezing past him and the now deflated airbags. She snaked her way through the narrow space and was moving too damn close to that window.

And too close to Deanna, who was aiming her gun at them.

Kit didn't even spare Deanna a glance. She was focused on getting behind the wheel. Once she had managed that, she threw the SUV into reverse and jammed her foot on the accelerator.

Jace didn't know who was more surprised—Deanna, Kit or him—when the SUV actually sped backwards and then to the right, out of the path of the Hummer. The Hummer flew past them, but Jace had no doubts the driver would turn around and come at them.

At least that was likely the plan.

The flashing lights on the road ahead might have made the driver rethink that. For a really bad moment, Jace thought this was Deanna's reinforcements, a hired gun or two to go along with whoever was in the Hummer.

But it wasn't.

"It's Angel," Kit muttered.

Jace felt a whole lot of relief about that, but he knew that didn't mean Kit was safe. Deanna was hurrying toward them.

No doubt ready to try to blast through that window and kill them.

The Hummer driver likely wouldn't just give up either. And added to that, Jace still didn't have control of his body. He was starting to get back some feeling in his hands, but that wasn't nearly enough to stave off an attack.

"No," Kit muttered, and when he looked at her, Jace saw she was peering over her shoulder, looking back at the Hummer.

Since Jace couldn't do a whole lot of moving just yet, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw two men wearing ski masks get out of the Hummer. They were both armed.

Hired guns probably.

Well, maybe. Unless this was Brandon and Trevor. An unholy alliance of the family to eliminate Kit, who could bring Trevor down.

The men took up position behind the now open Hummer doors, and while Jace didn't know if it was bullet resistant, the vehicle looked a lot sturdier than he wanted it to be.

Angel got out of his van, too, taking cover behind his own door. He didn't have a shot though since the two armed men weren't coming out into the open.

Deanna wasn't staying put either. She ran up to the driver's side of the SUV again. Ready to fire. She was probably too focused on murder to realize that she had just put herself in Angel's line of sight.

Angel fired.

And the bullet slammed into the woman's shoulder.

Deanna screamed out in pain, a sound so loud that it seemed to vibrate through the entire SUV. Clutching her shoulder, she fell back, landing on the grassy area, and she continued to wail.

"You shot me," she shouted as if that wasn't exactly what she'd planned on doing to Kit and him. "You sonofabitch."

Deanna let go of her shoulder, took aim at Angel, and she started firing.

Her shots were wild, slamming into the ground and into Angel's van, but Jace didn't think any of the bullets had hit Angel. However, what the gunfire was doing was pinning Angel behind his door and preventing him from taking out those two masked men.

"Put a gun in my hand," Jace told Kit. "And try to get down."

Though there wasn't much room for her to actually do that, not with the steering wheel and deflated airbag. Still, he was hoping she could duck down far enough to avoid being shot.

Since his own gun was somewhere in the tangle of those airbags or on the floor, Kit took out the backup weapon that he'd given her, and she pressed it into his right hand. He managed to tighten his grip around it and turn his upper body so he could be in a better position to return fire.

Kit did the same.

They'd need to try to kill those masked assholes if they managed to get close enough to start shooting through the window. Of course, they'd have to do that through the back or risk Angel getting off a shot at them.

Fighting the lack of control he had over his muscles, Jace managed to turn even more so that he now had his gun aimed at the back windshield. Right where the Hummer and the two men were. They weren't firing. Not yet anyway. But they had crouched down, no doubt so that Angel wouldn't be able to see their heads above the top of their doors.

Jace waited, volleying glances between the men and Deanna. He could hear his heartbeat thudding in his ears. Could hear the rasp of Kit's breath. And Deanna's gunfire, of course.

When Deanna's shots suddenly stopped, Jace figured she was out of ammo. Yep. He saw her pull out another clip from her pocket. Maybe he could try to stop her before she reloaded, especially since her hands were shaking and that would slow her down.

He was about to instruct Kit to lower the window just a fraction so he could fire out. But there was another slash of headlights. The sound of yet another vehicle racing toward them.

The gray car came into view and braked to a stop. Almost immediately, the driver barreled out.

Hell.

It was Brandon.