Guardian by Kassandra Kush Read Free Book Online Page B

horror began to take over my previous calm, rational thought, I realized they were absolutely not here. I glanced at all the ticking clocks. My time was running out. I had to find them.
    “Colton? Grace?” I said loudly, ignoring the clerk.
    There was no answer. And that was when I realized the strange man had also left the store without my even noticing. I choked on a sob as I pushed wildly out the door, so hard the bells fell off behind me. The door slammed closed on the clerk’s outraged cry, and I looked down the street each way, fighting tears. They were gone. Nowhere to be seen. All because of my stupid pride and reluctance to accept that someone could reliably help us, even for a few hours.
    I began running down the street at random. They couldn’t have gone far. Colton and Grace wouldn’t have gone quietly – but then, why couldn’t I hear them? Were they gagged? Unconscious? Was the filthy hand of that man covering their mouth? My heart hurt a little, and I felt cold sweat coat my entire body, chilling me in the hot day. I ran harder, faster.
    A car whizzed by, blurred by my sudden bout of tears as I realized they could have simply been thrown into a van and already be miles away. I slowed and began sobbing hysterically, leaning against the graffitied brick wall for strength, when I heard it.
    “ Lyl -”
    Someone cut off Gracie’s thin shout, but I would have known my sister’s voice even from the deepest recesses of hell. The alley broadened as it came out into another street, and at the end of it, I saw my two siblings, my babies, cornered by four men. Colton held a brick he must have found on the ground, and even as I watched, he pitched it clumsily at one of the men, who howled in pain as it hit his hand, clearly knocking a finger out of joint.
    Atta boy, I thought as I sprinted toward them, breathing in great gasps of air. That’s my Bub.
    But his retaliation only made them angrier. The man he had hit lunged for Colton with a growl. “I’ll get you, you little-”
    “Colton!” I shouted desperately. “Run!”
    All the men turned to look at me, and I thought I had surprised them enough to allow Colton and Grace to get away, but in the end I was the stunned one, Colton and Grace the ones to gasp in shock when a pair of arms reached out from behind the alley corner and grabbed me. Caught so firmly in mid-run, my legs flew up before me, the air knocked solidly from my chest.
    I wheezed loudly, and in the oxygen deprived, dreamy haze that now surrounded me, I heard my captor speak in a gravelly voice, “Looks like we’ll be taking this one too. She’s pretty enough, Eddie might take her.” I felt sickly sweet breath sting my nose as I tried to suck in air, felt the disgustingly hot words on my neck. “I did tell you I liked a woman in uniform.” And then louder, “Let’s get moving.”
    I held back the tears as I watched them throw Colton and Grace, who fought the whole time, through the side door of a blue minivan. This was it. I had cheated Fate, cheated God’s will for me by being rescued the night Austin had attacked me. What was meant to be would always find its way. Clearly, this was meant to happen. I couldn’t escape it for a second time.
    Or so I thought.
    Behind my captor and me, there was a loud thump , followed almost simultaneously by cracking and crumbling noises. All of us, kidnappers, my siblings, and me, turned as one, only to see a small crater had appeared in the black top behind us, a man standing inside it. It could only have been formed by the man’s feet when he jumped down from a great height. And that man, kneeling slightly inside the crater, was Rafael.
    He slowly straightened, his aura of danger full force, radiating out, purging the alley with its strength. That was all it took to send the men spurring into action. The ones who had thrown Colton and Grace in the van jumped in after their captives and sped off. This only served to infuriate my own captor, who