Chapter 6

“Remember, lick, shoot, suck,” Daniel said to Cecilia. He held up his shot glass, brimming to the top with lightly-tinted extra añejo. “Salud.”

“Salud,” Cecilia said back. After a quick glance at her watchful mother, she licked the salt off the crook of her thumb and drained the shot glass, blanching and gagging at the taste.

“Suck, suck, suck!” Daniel yelled.

Remembering the small lime wedge in her other hand, Cecilia bit down on it and sucked its juice into her mouth, squinting her eyes and dancing on her toes at the intensity of its sourness. Vivienne sighed, not just because her teenage daughter was drinking alcohol with a grown man, but also for the fact they were doing shooters with two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle tequila like a couple of Tijuana club rats. Vivienne sipped her shot glass to savor its velvety texture and smooth, vegetal notes.

“What do you think?” Daniel asked Cecilia.

She smacked her lips and smiled. “That was pretty good,” she said, but Vivienne could tell she was lying and hadn’t enjoyed it at all. “Can we do another?”

Vivienne opened her mouth to object, but Daniel shot her look that closed it again. She sighed and lifted her hand to give her unnecessary blessing. He lifted his eyebrow.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Set them up for us.”

With another sigh, she refilled their shot glasses and set a lime wedge in front of each of them. She gave her daughter a pointed look.

“You’re going to puke later. You know that, right?”

Cecilia shot her a bitchy, rueful smirk and harrumphed. “Whatever. At least I don’t get off from having my titties twisted like some people I know.”

That pulled a chuckle out of Daniel, and Cecilia flashed him an appreciative smile. Shit, she was really taken with him, Vivienne noticed. The idea of Daniel taking advantage of her daughter tightened her chest and shortened her breath. Not just for how wrong it would be for him to snatch away her innocence like that, but also because of the unexpected jealousy it dredged up inside of her. She didn’t even like him. In fact, she despised him. His abusive behavior absolutely disgusted her, even as it enthralled her. He was like the living embodiment of jumping out of an airplane with a parachute that may or may not be packed. He scared the shit out of her but filled her with breathless excitement at the same time.

Daniel glanced at the television and his amused expression disappeared in a flash. “Oh shit.”

Vivienne and her daughter turned at the same instant to see the intruders dispersing in small groups of two and three, wandering away from the gate to skirt the perimeter of the fence.

“Gun!” Daniel shouted at Cecilia, making her jump.

With jittery hands, she picked up the black pistol from the table, but all of a sudden she didn’t know what to do with it, holding it like a dead animal. Daniel put his hand over hers to calm her down.

“Just like I showed you, okay? Don’t do anything until I say, alright?”

She could hardly speak, her voice was so quavery. “O-o-okay,” she managed to get out.

Daniel caressed the side of her head. “You’ll do fine, Cece. I’ve got faith in you.”

His touch and confident words had an instant calming effect. Her trembling subsided and she nodded with a resolute look of determination. In a move that surprised Vivienne, and told her just how much trouble they were in, he pulled the Smith & Wesson from the back of his pants and held it out to her grip-first.

“Take it,” he said firmly and she did. Before he let go, he added, “The safety’s on. Do not flick it off unless I say so. Tell me you understand.”

“I-I understand.”

She was nearly as petrified as her daughter. Daniel nodded, then hit a combination of keys on the laptop that changed the display to a grid of nine video feeds that changed to new feeds every few seconds before cycling back.

“Mom, you stay right here and keep your eyes on those cameras. If any of them breaches the fence, call it out. Cece, you’re with me, honey.”

“Mom...” Cecilia whimpered with tears in her eyes, sounding like the frightened child she was.

“Just go, baby. I’ll be alright.”

Daniel looked between the two women. “This is it, ladies. If I don’t make it, I want you both to run. Don’t try to fight them. You’ll lose. Just run. Stick together and get as far away from here as you can.”

His ominous words only made Cecilia cry harder. Just as he turned to head into the office, Vivienne grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to her for a kiss. When he tilted his head, she gripped his hair and pushed her tongue into his mouth. She pulled her head back with a wet smack and he wobbled on his legs with a bemused expression.

“For luck,” she said, letting him go.

Cecilia’s damp eyes darted from her mom to Daniel. Then she lunged for him and pulled him down for a kiss of her own, only hers started hot and heavy right out of the gate and only heated up from there, punctuated by urgent cries and mewls from the back of her throat. When their faces separated, she dragged her fingertips over his moistened lips.

“That was for me,” she said.

He looked at both of them and coughed out a small laugh. “Thanks. Both of you.” Coming to his senses, he grabbed Cecilia’s arm and dragged her along to the office. “Come on.”

Watching them go, Vivienne couldn’t help the pang of jealousy that stabbed her in the heart, but movement on the television forced her to cast aside those feelings. Her sharp eyes quickly scanned the ghostly gray video images, taking stock of who was where. By her reckoning, everyone was accounted for and, so far, they were all still on the outside of the fence. In fact, it didn’t really look like they were- Wrong! One of them grabbed the top of the fence and pulled himself up to peek into the yard, which wasn’t really a yard so much as more of the same natural woodland, just enclosed behind a fence.

“Daniel!” she cried in a shrill voice.

“What?” came his sharp reply. “Talk to me!”

“They’re-” She cut herself off when the man dropped back onto his side of the fence and resumed his ambling journey with his partners. “Never mind!”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure!”

Her heart thundered in her chest. She was absolutely terrified, but at the same time she felt more alive than ever before. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, juicing her up like she’d just hoovered a fat line of cocaine. She shifted the pistol back and forth between her hands. She wouldn’t fuck it up this time. The moment Daniel gave the word, she’d flick that little safety switch and blast those fuckers to hell.

She was bouncing on her feet now, her eyes darting between the nine video feeds. For the first time all day, she felt a measure of control over the events in her life. She was the eyes and ears of this little operation. The overwatch. She panted and sweated. Fuck, was she jacked!

Cecilia bolted out of the office and Vivienne spun and screamed, dropping the pistol on the floor, before she thought to ask, “What is it? What’s happening?”

“I’m covering the back!” her daughter shouted as she raced to the rear of the house.

The sound of thundering footsteps made Vivienne spin in the other direction, where she just caught Daniel taking the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Fuck, fuck, fuck! She picked up the pistol and checked the safety, suddenly aware of the fact that she didn’t know which position was safe and which was dangerous. Fuck! She made the decision to leave it where it was and hope for the best.

Back to the television, she repeated her headcount until she was certain that all the bad guys were accounted for. They were still outside the perimeter of the fence. What the fuck were those assholes up to? Probably probing for the best way to infiltrate her property. Those fuckers! She almost wanted them to come. She wanted to see their brains explode out of the back of their heads when Daniel the Sniper hit them in the forehead.

Daniel. God, what would she and Cecilia have done if he wasn’t there? They’d probably already be tied spread eagle to their bed posts, getting gang-raped to death by a half dozen men each. She shuddered at the thought. Not today, dirtbags! Not today! Daniel was going to fuck those rapist bastards up, down, and sideways. God damn, did she want to fuck the shit out of him right then. Just ride his cock while she blasted away with her pistol. Fuck yeah!

After what felt like hours, but was only a few minutes, the invaders completed their reconnoiter of her fenced-in property and reconvened at the gate, where they tore into another case of what looked to be the world’s cheapest beer. Daniel descended the stairs with the rifle slung over his shoulder, his head down, looking like a vision straight out of Soldier of Fortune. God damn, was he a good looking man. He reminded her of Charles in some ways, at least in his physique, but Daniel had a strong, self-assured bearing that Charles could never hope to match on his best day. Daniel was a fucking god in her eyes. A knight in shining ... khaki.

“Did you see that?” he asked when he noticed her watching him. “Looks like they were scouting the property, looking for an entry point.”

“Yes!” she hissed, still bouncing around on the balls of her feet. “What do you think? When are they going to attack?”

“I don’t know,” he said, wiping his face. He looked tired. “Cece!”

Cecilia came running from wherever she’d been posted at the rear of the house, looking just as keyed up as Vivienne. “What?” She glanced at the television. “What’s happening? What are they doing?”

“Planning,” he said grimly. He collapsed onto the sofa and blew out a long breath. “Fuck.”

Both women, mother and daughter, sat on either side of him, anxious to hear what they were going to do in response. He looked at them and shook his head.

“All we can do right now is watch and wait. It’s going to be a long night.”

Vivienne found that plan extremely disappointing. She didn’t want to sit back and play defense. She wanted to be proactive. She wanted to take the fight to them, not cower in her house, waiting for them to make the first move. It occurred to her, however, that she had zero experience with combat and that going on the offensive, especially when they were outnumbered four to one, and two of them didn’t know jack shit about handling a gun, was probably suicide, so she did as she imagined Daniel would tell her to do and kept her stupid mouth shut.

He checked his watch. “Alright, it’s almost nine o’clock. Those guys look like they came prepared to stick it out for the night, and I think that’s exactly what they intend to do.”

He was right. Vivienne noticed they all wore heavy button-down flannels, thick hoodies, or down jackets. She saw several beanie hats and a few of them even wore gloves. Besides the beer, they’d also brought some snack foods with them. They weren’t planning to go anywhere other than inside her house.

“My guess is they’re going to wait until early morning, just before dawn. Wait until we’re good and tired and then assault the house. Try to catch us off guard.”

“I’m not tired,” Vivienne said, her eyes held wide open to lend truth to her words.

“Me neither,” said Cecilia.

“Maybe not right this instant, but you will be, and soon,” he said. “Besides their numbers, that’s probably their biggest advantage. They know when they’re coming over that fence, and we don’t. They can take it easy tonight, and we can’t. We have to stay vigilant, which means we’re going to be up all night.”