Slow Burn(4)

    They weren’t going to be any help.

    And the man was strangling me.

    Of course, I’d be okay, even if he did. The serum that my father gave me made me next to invincible. I healed pretty fast. If I suffocated, I’d be okay. There were very few ways to kill me.

    I flailed at the man, driving my fist into his midsection.

    He was solid, like the trunk of a tree. He didn’t even react. Actually, it kind of hurt my hand.

    He laughed. “You made things messier, but that’s all.” He released my throat, grabbed me around the waist, and threw me over his shoulder. People did not pick me up very often. I wasn’t fat or anything, but I was fairly tall for a girl—about five feet nine inches. Being slung over a man’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes was disconcerting.

    I shrieked, beating ineffectual fists against his back. The world was upside down now, and blood was rushing to my head.

    The man hurried across the parking lot, one arm holding me tightly against him.

    “Put me down, now,” I said.

    He was still laughing.

    Until he stopped. Cut off in mid-chuckle, the man suddenly stopped everything. He didn’t take another step. His grip on me loosened. He seemed to be losing his balance.

    A blur of denim and muscles flashed in front of my vision.

    In two seconds, I was standing upright, and the man who’d been holding me had crumpled to the ground. His suit jacket fell open, and I saw a gun on a shoulder holster.

    Another guy was kneeling over him. He had a similar buzz cut—his dark hair was barely visible against his bare skull. He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. It clung to the muscles in his back and shoulders. Jesus, he must work out a lot.

    Muscles turned to me. He had piercing gray eyes, a straight nose, a firm jaw. He was probably the most beautiful man I’d ever seen apart from magazine models. “You okay, blondie?”

    “Blondie?” I said.

    Muscles took Suit’s gun and tucked it under his jeans at the small of his back. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

    “No,” I said. Who was this guy?

    Muscles felt along Suit’s body, pulling out other weapons. Two more guns. A knife. “As long as you’re safe, doll.”

    “Doll?” I didn’t know this guy.

    He grinned at me. “You might want to look away for this part.”

    “What?” I was realizing that he had some kind of urban accent.

    Muscles turned Suit over onto his back. Muscles used the knife he’d taken away from Suit to slash the back of Suit’s neck. There was blood.

    I did look away. What the hell was going on?

    Muscles stood up. Whoa. He was tall. Probably six four at least. “All right, let’s get out of here.”

    “Let’s?” I said. “As in you and me? I don’t think so.”

    “I just saved you, doll,” he said. “Now, where’s your car?”

    “Saved me?” I hugged myself. Okay, so maybe that was technically true. But he also had just really, really killed this guy right in front of me, and he was being overly familiar, and... “Who says I needed saving?”

    “Um, you did yell for help,” he said.

    I did, didn’t I? “But you... you cut him. And he fell down, and... what happened?”

    “I shot him from over there,” said Muscles. He pointed. “I would have shot earlier, but I couldn’t get at him without you in the way.”

    “I didn’t hear a shot.”

    “I used a silencer,” he said. “And he’s been given the serum, so unless I severed his spinal cord, he wasn’t going to be really dead.”

    I didn’t say anything. This guy knew about the serum? Was he from Dewhurst-McFarland too?

    “You know about the serum, right?” he said. “Your dad said he explained it to you.”

    “My dad?”

    “Yeah,” said Muscles. “Maybe I should have led with that. I knew your dad. He sent me here to protect you.”

    “Knew?” As in, past tense.

    Muscles’ face fell. “Right. You don’t know yet.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “They got him, doll. He’s dead.”