Breaking Down Defenses (3rd in Breaking Series)

Chapter Twenty-Three

His dirty beard and mustache dug into her soft skin and his filthy hands made her want to vomit as she felt them running up her legs and over her chest. Max let out a yell of disbelief and Sally hoped the boy would understand later.

She acted as if she liked what Herman was doing and brought her legs up to wrap them around his waist, "Yeah, I love a woman with long legs," he grunted as he ripped her blouse open.

Sally pulled his mouth back to hers. She needed him to be too busy kissing her to realize what she was doing. She reached her hand down to her boot and pulled out her eight inch long, pearl handled knife she always kept there. Thomas had given her that knife when she had been younger.

"Bye Herman," she gasped as she pulled her mouth away. He looked at her with confusion and then his eyes widened with shock and pain when she brought the knife down hard on his back, driving it into the left side, just below his shoulder blade and directly into his heart.

"You bitch," he gasped as blood trickled between his lips and dripped onto her cheek.

"You bastard," she replied harshly. Sally twisted her knife and then pulled the blade back out and pushed his dead body off of her with a grunt. She stood up, cleaned her knife on Herman's shirt and stuck it back in her boot.

She walked over to Max and he acted scared at her approach, "I'm sorry, Max. I had to act that way to get him to untie me so I could kill him. Come on and we'll take his horse and go back home. We have to hurry before Lee comes back."

Max nodded and Sally untied his hands and helped him up onto Herman's horse. She grabbed the small lantern that Herman had lit and Herman's gun belt and climbed up into the saddle. She used the light to follow the tracks back toward the ranch. She could only pray that she didn't get herself and Max lost, that Lee wouldn't find them before they made it back to the ranch and that Thomas would be able to take care of Lee if he came looking for her.

***

"Dammit Brody this is taking too long! What if they're touching her?! I swear by all that is holy, Brody, if they touch my wife, if they so much as harm a single hair on her or Max's head, I will make sure they die so damn slow the buzzards will get tired of waiting!" Thomas exclaimed.

Brody couldn't say anything to the man... He had branded a man's head, let a man bleed to death slowly for hours, and then shot an unarmed man point blank in the head when he thought his wife had been killed. When you messed with a man's wife and children it changed him. It taught a man real quick just what he was capable of.

Brody wanted these men too. That was his little sister they had. But Brody also knew how tough Sally was. She knew how to protect and take care of herself. He had taught her a few things and he knew that Thomas had taught her as well when they'd been younger. He was actually more concerned that she'd kill both the men and get lost out here than he was that the men would hurt her.

"Look Brody!" Thomas exclaimed when he saw a light bobbing in the distance.

"Careful Thomas," Brody warned but Thomas was already galloping ahead. He had his gun drawn and aimed at the target but then he saw her pale face illuminated in the light and he nearly burst with relief.

"Sally!" he shouted.

"Thomas!" she called back. They both jumped from their horses as they met up and Thomas wrapped her so tightly in his arms that she found herself unable to breath. But she didn't mind. Breathing seemed unimportant right now when compared to being held by her husband.

"What happened to your face?" Thomas asked as he ran his hand over the bruise that was forming on her soft skin.

"Herman hit me," she replied with a wave of her hand, as if that wasn't important.