Read Online Darkest Before Dawn (A Guardian's Diary Book 1) by Amelia Hutchins - Free Book Online Page B

again. Teeth marks; check. The bloody paw marks looked canine, and that pissed me off since they’d just tried to eat me yesterday. I looked to the corner and smiled. I could tell that some of the prints were old, and some were new. Which meant, the wolves had come back to snack on the corpses after the kill.
    I knew Joseph had been trapping animals for fresh meat, and I also knew he’d worked at the fish and tackle shop, which doubled as a hunting shop as well. I found the unused traps in the closet and made fast work of setting them around the bigger pieces of the bodies. Wolves by nature were smart animals, cautious if they could smell humans. Obviously these ones were hungry enough to ignore their instincts.
    I walked out of the cabin, and stopped cold. My heart dropped to my feet, and my breath froze in my throat. I stepped back towards the house, but it was filled with traps. In front of me were about ten or more men, all looking at me strangely. I had my mask still in place, so I guess that only made sense. I mean, I had a skull face, and had a ripped up sheet wrapped around me; even I’d pause to do a double take.
    “And what ye be doing in there?” the leader asked. He wore no shirt but he had it hanging from his pants, and his torso was covered in tribal tattoos. His hair was black, and his eyes, even from this distance, popped with a deep emerald shade. The men behind him all held guns, which of course were pointed at me.
    I took a step closer, and another one. Please, Sarah, not a peep!
    I remained silent, as I worked my way closer in the direction of the path. If I could just make it to the path, I could run to the ATV. I was fast, but I wasn’t fast enough to dodge bullets, and I couldn’t turn and run because I had a sleeping infant on my back attached to me, and my pack weighed heavily on my arm stuffed with all of the supplies I had taken for her.
    “I wouldna do that,” the hulking leader said in what sounded like a Scottish brogue, as he sniffed the air. At about the same exact time his eyes landed on me, a painful scream ripped from inside the house. I turned in horror as a male came limping out, white and pale as he collapsed to the ground with a bear trap clamped wickedly around his foot and ankle.
    “Liam!” The taller of the men shouted.
    He was bleeding profusely. He’d passed out from the shock and pain. I had a choice to make, since I knew how to save him.
    “What the fuck did ye do?” the leader asked angrily as he stepped closer.
    “Don’t move,” I said and watched as shock registered on his face. “I can help him, or he can bleed out—” the baby wailed and the entire forest froze. I waited to see their response, before I spoke over the screaming infant. “He’ll bleed out unless you allow me to help him. I was in nursing school, and also working at the hospital in Newport as a surgical technician. If I help him, you let me go, deal?”
    “What happened inside that house, lass?” He asked instead of answering me.
    “Animals ate Sarah’s family—she was hidden—and I need to get her to my people so I can examine her.”
    “Deal, save him,” he growled.
    I turned and slowly walked back up the steps, and then kneeled down to where the black haired male was just opening his eyes. “I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.”
    He nodded; his face remained strained with pain. How he was managing to not scream was beyond me. The metal teeth of the trap were buried in his flesh at his ankle. I ripped off my sweatshirt sleeve to be able to stop the bleeding. It wasn’t until I tried to remove the trap that I felt a flash of panic.
    “I need help,” I said turning to eye the leader. I hated that I needed it, but without help, I couldn’t manage it. It was an old trap, rusty and one that had to be held open to release the animal, in this case, this man’s foot.
    The leader stepped forward, and for a brief moment, I wanted to dart into the forest to keep Sarah safe, and