Best Man by Christine Zolendz

to think.
    No time for questions.
    I pulled out my gun and ran to the other side of the house. I needed Maddie safe. I turned away and collided with Ava, who stumbled back and fell straight down onto her ass and yelped. I hovered over her and smacked a hand over her mouth. “Shut up and call the police. Now!”
    “Wha?” she blinked up at me.
    Travis toppled over Ava and used her head for leverage to stand up again.
    “Ouch, you-stupid-dick,” she hissed, smacking him in the legs.
    “Shut the hell up, both of you!” I yanked out my phone and pressed the emergency button and handed it to Ava. “Get the sheriff here right now. Tell him there’s been a break in and someone is in trouble. Then get back into the Jeep.”
    Travis straightened up and scratched at the vomit that was smashed all over his cheek. “But you’re the cops.”
    I rushed past him. “And I need more of me. Right now! Call them. Maddie’s in trouble.”
    He laughed loudly. “Maddie’s always in trouble.”
    I spun on him wildly. “Not with the men inside her house. They’re going to kill her if I don’t stop them. Call the fucking police.”
    Thank God Ava was already on my phone and telling someone the address. Fear gripped my insides thinking she might be ordering a damned pizza—but there wasn’t time to make sure. I needed to get to Maddie.
    Travis wavered next to her as I ran to the other side of the house. His bottle of liquor slid from his grip and plunked onto the grass in front of him.
    I ran along the side of the house until I got to the back and the first open window I could find. Punching a hole in the screen, I yanked at it until it ripped into a big enough hole for me to climb through. I pulled myself up and through and dropped to the floor hard.
    I looked up and saw Maddie holding a lamp in her hands, ready to bean anyone who came in the door. “Get out of here,” she said, waving me away. “They want to kill you!”
    Just outside the door we could hear Cardarrio and someone else trying to stop the bleeding.
    “Do you hear me?” she whispered. “They want to kill you!”
    “So?” I smirked, “I’m here to save you.”
    She ripped the shade off the lamp and threw it at me. “I’ve been holding my own here.”
    I pulled in a deep breath and smiled at her. She was holding her own, wasn’t she? “Yeah, I’ve noticed. Are you hurt?”
    “Nope. Just a little pissed that he got to see my boobs,” she growled. Then, her lips pulled up into a smile. “But I made sure he couldn’t hurt me.”
    “Yeah, now I’m going to kill him,” I said, moving toward the door to open it. Sirens wailed somewhere along the road. For a few seconds, I had worried that Ava would call the wrong place. Thank God, it wasn’t the pizza guy.
    “Trust me, he only has twenty more minutes to live. Who the fuck are they?” she asked, smacking my hand away from the doorknob.
    “Those are the bad guys,” I smirked. “Did you notice if they had guns?”
    “Yeah, both of them did,” she whispered.
    The sirens got closer.
    “I need you out of this house right now,” I said, grabbing onto her waist and dragging her to the window. “My Jeep is at the opening of your driveway. Travis and Ava are outside somewhere, drunk.”
    Tires crunched over gravel and red and blue lights flashed outside. Car doors opened and closed, and I knew the cabin was being surrounded. She dropped the lamp to the floor, leaned against the sill of the window just about to climb out. Then, she stopped.
    “Climb out the window. Now!” I snapped.
    “Are you coming?” she asked.
    “No!”
    “Then I’m staying with you,” she said, picking up the lamp again and standing back up.
    “Are you insane? Get out the window,” I said, shoving her against it. She slipped out of my grasp and scrambled over the bed and next to the door again.
    Quick footsteps thundered down the hallway on the other side of the door. She had no vest on, she had no protective gear, and