Free Out of the Shadows (Tangled Ivy #3) by Tiffany Snow

steps were silent and he squeezed my hand and let go, a glance telling me he wanted me to stay put. I stopped, watching him lift his weapon, elbows bent, as he rounded the counter to a door just beyond.
    Someone coughed and Devon paused, moving to the side of the door and waiting. Sure enough, a few seconds later, the door opened and a man stepped out.
    I barely had time to notice his scraggly beard, stained T-shirt, and lip and nose piercings before Devon had him by the throat and shoved up against the wall. The muzzle of the gun was pressed against his temple and Devon was in his face.
    “Where the fuck is my car?” he growled.
    The guy looked terrified, but struggled not to show it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” he said.
    Devon pressed the muzzle harder into his head, until he flinched.
    “I’ll ask you one more time, then I’m going to shoot you.” Devon’s t one was cold, and sweat broke out on the man’s brow. “Where is my car?”
    “I don’t know—”
    The gunshot made me flinch, but Devon hadn’t shot the guy. Instead, the bullet was lodged into the wall behind his head. Blood dripped from his ear, and I realized the bullet had taken a chunk of flesh with it.
    “Oh God! Oh God!” The guy was crying now, his hand covering his injury. “Please don’t kill me! I know who took it! I’ll tell you! Just don’t kill me!”
    “Then talk,” Devon bit out.
    “Th-they pay me a thousand bucks to tell them about any good cars. Then they come and steal them. I don’t know what they do with them, I swear.”
    “Who are they?”
    “I don’t know their names,” the guy said, his eyes swiveling to where Devon still held the gun close to his face. “They live about a mile from here, in the trailer park. They’re a bunch of meth heads and dealers, brewing that shit up and selling it.”
    “A mile in which direction?”
    “S-south,” he stammered.
    “Excellent.”
    Devon moved fast, the butt of the gun coming down hard on the guy’s head. His eyes rolled up and he dropped to the floor like a rock.
    “He’s not dead, is he?” I asked, eyeing the body.
    “No. Just out for a while. I don’t want him to warn them.”
    “Warn them about what?”
    Devon looked at me like I was an idiot. “That I’m coming.”
    “You can’t go take on a bunch of drug dealers alone,” I protested. “It’s just a car. We-we can rent a new one.”
    “Where on earth do you think we’ll be able to rent a new one out here?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
    Okay, well he had me there. Maybe we could sneak into the park, find the SUV, and steal it back. No muss, no fuss.
    Yeah, right.
    I sighed. “Okay. Let’s go.” I pointed at him. “And no, I’m not staying behind.”
    “I wasn’t going to suggest you should,” he said, sounding affronted.
    I snorted. “Sure you weren’t.”
    “All right. Perhaps I was thinking it would be safer—”
    “We’re in this together,” I interrupted. “Where you go, I go. Whether it’s dangerous or not. We’re not separating.” I knew what hap pened when you separated. I’d seen enough movies. It was always bad. Like getting up in the middle of the night to check out the strange noise downstairs in a horror movie. Always a bad decision. “Agreed?”
    I waited, crossing my arms and staring at him until he finally caved. “Agreed.”
    Devon searched the clerk’s pockets until he turned up a set of car keys, which went to a beat-up VW Bug we found behind the building. I slid into the passenger seat and gagged on the overwhelming odor of weed.
    “Good lord,” I said, rolling down the manual window. Hadn’t seen one of those in a while. “Is getting high all he does?”
    “What else is there to do around here?” Devon replied, starting the engine.
    Okay, he may have had a point.
    We drove south, following the same direction they’d taken the SUV, for about a mile. I scanned the darkness ahead, then pointed.
    “There it is.”
    It was a