DFF – Delicate Freakin Flower Read Online Mary B. Moore

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Insta-Love Tags Authors: Mary B. Moore Advertisement1

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Then I hummed a low, short note. Eddie tapped the floor five times in reply. I nodded uselessly, but it was instinctive. He'd picked up five people closing in on the drone.

The tension in my chest tightened as the doorknob creaked, then the front door swung open.

I exhaled and waited, finger tight on the trigger as two of them stepped inside. They moved fast, rifles slung low, their flashlights taped and angled like they’d done this before. The door clicked softly shut behind them, but we didn’t give them the chance to get far.

I lunged first, grabbing the front guy by the arm, and yanked him forward hard enough to slam him into the wall. Eddie dropped the second with a shoulder tackle that sent him sprawling onto the floor, his gun skittering away.

The fight was short, brutal, and as quiet as we could make it. I caught a punch to the side and drove my knee into the guy’s stomach, slamming his head against the floor to knock him out.

Across the room, Gabby was hissing through her teeth. One of the men had elbowed her in the ribs while Eddie was throwing him down. Before I could react and move her to another part of the room, she was already crawling out the back door. I swore under my breath as I punched the guy again, but I had to trust that she knew what she was doing.

Gabby

The night air slapped me in the face as I belly-crawled through the grass toward the stash of expired food I’d tucked under the porch weeks ago.

I cracked a can of something I had hoped was fish, gagged at the oily funk rolling out of it, and chucked it, along with the catfish chunks, straight into the bushes.

I grabbed another one, and then that can went flying, then another one followed it. Then, a fourth one landed with a wet plop on the grass.

I heard footsteps—heavy, hurried, and closing in fast. Each one pounded against the ground with purpose, growing louder with every second.

I reached down to my hip, curled my fingers around Tinkerbell—my compact pistol, sweet and deadly—and held my breath.

“They say it smells like something died out here,” one of them rumbled.

That’s because something did, probably multiple somethings, I thought grimly.

I ducked behind the porch wall just as a boot came down hard—right on my foot. I yelped, too quiet to carry, and looked up as one of the men’s eyes met mine. I didn’t think, I just acted as was the norm for me.

Cracking open another can of fish so rotten it could be classified as chemical warfare, I dumped it on him before he could register what his eyes were seeing. He howled and began gagging as he clawed at his face, and I took advantage of his distraction and shoved him off the edge of the porch. The behemoth sausage landed on his back with a loud thud and groan.

Then, the rustling started. Raccoons, at least three of them, eyes gleaming, shuffling out of the bushes like they’d been summoned. And they totally swarmed him. Not biting—yet—but swiping and scrambling for the fish.

“What the fuck—” the guy screamed, trying to fend them off. "Help! Rabies!"

I stood up and delivered a sharp kick to the side of his head, and he slumped out cold.

“You’re welcome,” I whispered to the raccoons, tossing one a Goldfish cracker from my pocket as a bonus.

Two other men rushed toward the noise and stopped when they saw the mess. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he hissed. “I told you we shouldn’t have brought him.”

They picked up the unconscious guy and shook him awake. “What the hell happened?”

He blinked, dazed. “There was... someone. A girl⁠—”

“Shut up and stay here. Watch the perimeter, and for fuck's sake, find a way to wash yourself off. You stink.”

“And the other two?” another asked, apparently unfazed by the stench.

"What other two?" Stinky sausage slurred.

"The ones who came with us."

“No idea.”

They left him slumped by the porch as they moved into the house. The moment their backs were turned, I crept after them—barefoot and silent.

Webb

The door creaked open again, and two men burst in—tense, alert, and their rifles already raised and sweeping the room. They both passed us blindly, their incompetence stinking like Gabby's fishy weapons.

Eddie and I moved instinctively, our reactions perfectly in sync. He veered left, and I darted right, both of us hugging the walls as we searched for cover and angles.

Then, a third man stepped through the doorway. His movements were slower and more deliberate. There was something different about him—he didn’t storm in like the others, he assessed the room and scanned it. And when his eyes locked onto the movement—on me—his hand started to shift toward the holster at his side.

Crack!

He staggered forward, eyes wide in surprise, and then dropped like a rock. Behind him stood Gabby, pistol in hand, smoke trailing from the barrel, expression dark and calm.


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