Chapter 72: They Should Have Kept Their Hands to Themselves

Dove dropped behind the garden center’s brick sign as a bolt struck the top edge. Broken mortar sprayed over her hood. She stayed crouched on the pavement between the sign and the empty parking lot, suddenly furious that she’d just helped these men move their damn cart.

"Leave the woman," the man with the rope called. "You can take the food and go."

"Come closer and ask nicely," Dove shouted back, although her hands were shaking too hard to match the confidence.

Thorne pulled her away from the exposed end of the wall. "I like the attitude. I don’t like the invitation."

She nodded because her mouth had gone dry. Then she pulled the slingshot from her pocket and tipped several clay pellets into her other hand. She hadn’t bought it to carry it around looking hopeful.

Edrik tore one loose metal side off the trolley. It was a flat sheet, about as wide as his shoulders, attached by hooks so the load could be lifted off. He gripped it in front of his chest and pressed his palm against the back.

The thin steel stiffened under his power. The next bolt hit with a loud clang instead of punching through, and Dove finally understood exactly what he was doing. He had made himself a shield from the cart they had just repaired.

He advanced along the road behind it, keeping the armed man busy while Thorne guarded Dove’s side of the sign. The crew split, two staying near the trolley while the rope carrier and another man tried to come around the brickwork.

Dove aimed at the nearer man’s coat. Her first pellet struck the pavement by his boot. He laughed, which was a mistake she intended to remember for the rest of his very annoying afternoon.

She threw a loose stone with her other hand. It hit his shoulder as he turned toward Thorne, making him flinch long enough for her mate to catch his knife wrist.

Thorne forced the hand against the wall and touched the blade’s exposed metal. It bent sideways under his fingers. The man stared at his ruined weapon just before Thorne drove him backward, away from Dove.

"Keep doing that," her mate told her without looking away from the attacker.

Having a useful job helped. She crouched lower, chose another pellet, and waited until the crossbowman had turned toward Edrik’s shield. Her shot clipped the man’s sleeve. It didn’t hurt him much, but his aim jerked sideways.

Edrik reached him before he could correct it. The steel shield slammed against the crossbow, pinning it to the trolley, and the knife in the bear’s other hand moved once. The man folded beside the wheel.

Dove’s breath caught. Edrik didn’t look pleased or angry. He looked like somebody finishing a job he had already decided needed doing.

The rope carrier rushed the open end of her cover. Thorne was still blocking the knife man, so Dove backed toward the cart, keeping its wheel between herself and the reaching hands.

A bag of spare bolts caught under her heel. She grabbed the strap before it tripped her, and Sprout told her to store it. This time her hand was already touching the object. The bag vanished with a small pull through her palm.

The attacker stopped at the empty patch of pavement. Dove threw her last loose stone straight into his startled face and scrambled behind Edrik as he turned the shield toward her.

"You can keep fucking looking for it," she shouted, using his confusion to put more of the cart between herself and his hands.

Edrik moved her behind the steel with a touch at her shoulder, almost gentle. Then he caught the man’s reaching arm and drove him into the cart hard enough to end the chase. His expression didn’t change when the body slid down.

Thorne came around the sign alone. The attacker he’d fought lay motionless behind it. Before Dove could ask whether her mate was hurt, the fourth man lifted a short spear behind Edrik.

She shouted a warning and fired another pellet. It hit the cart instead of the man’s hand, but he ducked, breaking his swing. Thorne seized the weapon near its steel collar and bent the metal sharply, twisting the spearhead out of line.

Edrik turned into the struggle. The ruined spear struck his coat, and the attacker pulled a knife while trying to get away from him. Dove saw the flash near the bear’s arm and tried to reload with fingers that wouldn’t settle.

She didn’t have to fire. Edrik ended it before the man reached her side of the trolley, then checked the road beyond the bridge with the same steady attention he’d given it before the fight.

Four men had attacked them. None was getting up. Dove lowered the slingshot and stared at the clay dust on her glove, trying to decide whether it was reasonable to hate the whole road.

"Don’t come around this side yet," Edrik told her. "Stay with him."

He wasn’t hiding what he’d done. She had seen enough. He was placing himself between her and the worst of it while he made certain nobody else waited behind the cart.

Thorne reached her and held out his empty hand. She took it, gripping harder than she meant to.

"We helped them," she said. "They could’ve moved their cart and let us leave, and I would’ve complained about them for maybe ten minutes."

"They made their choice," Thorne answered. He wiped mortar from her cheek with his thumb. "Your stones helped."

She wanted to be proud of that. Mostly she wanted coffee, a locked door, and a world where buying a rain poncho didn’t lead to attempted kidnapping.

Edrik set the steel shield down only after checking both ends of the road. Without his touch, its dented edge flexed again. Sweat darkened his collar, but when he looked at Dove his voice softened enough to sound unfamiliar.

"You stayed on your feet and kept watching them," he told her. "That gave us the openings we needed."

She opened her mouth to tell him that was a low standard. Then his hand slipped while fastening his coat, and she saw blood running from the sleeve onto his knuckles.

Dove let go of Thorne and went straight to the bear, telling him to sit down before he could start lying about it.