Page 111 of Monster's Claim

“Sorry, guys, but what’s taking so long? It’s been like, half an hour! Aren’t you ready?”

“Fuck off, Josh,” I growl.

“Quill, stop that,” admonishes Piper. “We’ll be right down!”

I pull her off my lap and give her one last resounding smack that I’m sure Josh can hear through the door. Piper goes pink. “Honestly, you’re so annoying!” she hisses.

I grin. “Let’s go.”

Before I can stop her, she’s opening the door, waltzing right out with Josh, with a provocative look on her face as she glances back.

“Wait!” I call, zipping up the suitcase at my feet before I hook a hand into the suitcase handle. I carry it out, gritting my teeth as I see Piper skipping alongside Josh down the staircase.

“Wait!”

It’s crazy that I’ve gotten so used to her being attached to me at the hip that it fills me with a cold sort of dread to see her even a few feet away, and not be able to touch her. Or maybe there’s another reason for the dread as I call for a third time, “Wait!”

Instead of doing that, she turns as she reaches the bottom of the staircase, and sticks her tongue out at me mockingly.

It’s official, I’m married to a toddler.

But the knot of dread grows, and I find myself repeating the word helplessly. “Wait!”

I’m halfway down the stairs, slowed down by the heavy suitcase I’m lugging, when the door opens behind her. This time, I can only mouth the word when a hand suddenly shoots out, pressing a handkerchief to her face. Her expression turns to shock in the space of an instant. And then, she falls, her eyes rolling to the back of her head.

“Fuck! Piper!”

I let the suitcase go tumbling down the stairs as I jump down the remaining steps, crossing the living room in a flash. But the person at the door is faster. A soldier, I realize, by his mask, and my stomach turns into a single live nerve ending. He pulls the unconscious body of my wife back as another soldier steps in to block the space where she was moments before. He takes out a gun and lands it crashing over Josh’s head, who’s been watching the whole thing with a frozen expression.

Fuck. Where’s my gun? Where the fuck is my gun?

Oregon has made me soft. I fumble for the gun I always keep in my backpocket, only now, I realize it’s in my winter coat. Hanging in the hall closet.

Fuck the gun. Nothing can keep me from Piper.

Before the soldier even knows what hit him, I go barreling into him, and I hear the gun shot as it ricochets in the room behind me. I punch his stomach, shoving him to the side, and run toward the car, where the other soldier is loading Piper’sunconscious form into the back seat. A third soldier is at the front, foot on the gas, ready to pull away.

If they think they’re getting away with this, they’ve got another thing coming.

I rush toward them, running faster than I ever have, and grab the handle to the front door. It’s locked, but it would take a lot more to keep me from opening it. I pull on it with all my strength, while at the same time bashing in the window with my head. I manage to crack it, but it takes so much force I’m momentarily dazed.

Just enough that when the gun presses down against my temple, I lose my focus for one second.

And then I freeze when I hear the voice in my ear.

“Let her go, Quill. Let her go.”

My dad.

Chapter 32

Quill

Twelve years old

“You’re the reason she abandoned us. She abandonedme.”

THUMP.