TWICE A HERO By Susan Krinard

“This way!” she yelled, grabbing Caroline. They pelted around a corner and into a side street, stopped, and turned into an even narrower alley.

A dark closed carriage waited at the end of it, the horses lunging against their harness in panic. Men were fighting, one pair on the ground struggling for control of a pistol and another grappling against the side of the carriage.

One of the men on the ground was Liam.

Mac didn’t think. She ran for the melee as if her life depended on it, Caroline right behind. They’d just reached the chaotic scene when another pair of men emerged from a maze of close-set buildings, men in dark shirts and loose trousers with distinctly threatening attitudes. One of them brandished a hatchet, the other a gun.

“Watch out!” Mac yelled. The new arrival with the gun stopped and took aim at her. The man with the hatchet shouted something to his partner, distracting him, and the two of them went directly for Liam.

“Perry!” Caroline cried.

Mac had exactly one second to take it all in. Liam was crouched over his erstwhile opponent, swaying, blood on his temple, preparing for the new men’s attack. Perry was busy banging his adversary’s head against the side of the carriage.

Caroline rushed for Perry. Mac raised her knife, screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs, and charged the guy with the hatchet.

For an instant her gaze met Liam’s, and then he was moving—straight between her and the hatchetman. The man with the gun was taking careful aim for Liam’s skull.

With a maneuver that would have made Wonder Woman proud, Mac changed directions, bent double, and used her head for a battering ram, hitting the gunman square in the stomach. He grunted and staggered back. The gun went off. Fighting dizziness, Mac stuck her knife to the hilt in the man’s hand. He wailed and dropped the gun.

It wasn’t over yet. She was about ready to dive for the gun when she saw Liam squared off with the hatchetman. Unarmed, and still swaying on his feet as if he might keel over with the next stiff breeze.

Instinct warred with sense. She didn’t know how to use the gun—but Liam did. She went for it, rolling, and grabbed it around the barrel. By the time she was on her feet again Liam was dodging the swing of the vicious axe and losing his balance.

Mac did the only thing she could think of. She swung the gun and clipped the hatchetman on the back of the skull with the butt just as he was ready to connect the blade of his axe with Liam’s neck.

The man fell. Liam tried to get up. Mac was going to him when something hit her from behind, and she was lying under the weight of the forgotten gunman, who had a knife to her throat. His wounded hand dripped blood onto her jacket.

Everything slowed down to a snail’s pace. Liam gave a cry Mac had never heard from any human being, made an aborted movement toward her and stopped when the tong enforcer pressed the knife blade against her skin.

She met Liam’s gaze and forgot the rest of the world. Her own danger meant nothing next to the pain and terror in his eyes.

The hatchetman raised his knife. Liam leaped up with an animal roar. Mac saw the knife descend, felt an explosive rush of air close to her cheek, heard a deafening bang, and then there was a great deal of blood and a man screaming in pain.

Part of her registered the sight of Perry standing by the carriage with a pistol in his hand… and a view of the man who’d been holding her, flat on his back, groaning, with a substantially larger hole in his arm than her knife had made.

“Mac!” Liam rasped, very close to her ear. “Mac—”

“I’m all right,” she gasped. “Perry—Oh, damn it, Caroline—”

She got Liam’s attention just in time. Perry’s first adversary had apparently recovered from the pounding Perry had given him, for he’d taken advantage of Perry’s distraction and grabbed Caroline. Caroline was fighting her captor like a banshee, all feet and little clenched fists; Perry was aiming his gun, as helpless to save her as Liam had been with the hatchetman.

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