My heart was pounding a mile a minute, and I had to make myself calm down so I could read his thoughts. He had some kind of a bomb, and he was planning on opening the back door and tossing it in and running like hell. I had no idea what kind of device it was. It might be a stink bomb or a smoke bomb . . . or a firebomb.

I felt a movement behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mindy creeping into the room. She’d made the kids lie down on the hall floor, and had come in to provide backup. I felt an unexpected surge of emotion. My resolve got a shot of adrenaline.

So here’s where I may have overreacted.

When the teenager opened the back door, so very cautiously, and stuck his hand in, I shoved the door all the way open, took a half step, and swung the bat as hard as I could.

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

I broke his arm. And here’s the thing: Though what he was holding turned out to be a stink bomb, not something that would actually physically harm Sam’s family, I never did feel bad about it afterward. In fact, in a savage kind of way I was glad I’d broken a bone.

This was the new me. Though I could regret I’d changed, it was a done deal. I couldn’t regenerate the tenderhearted me. I didn’t know how much of this alteration in my character was due to the blood bond I shared with a big, unscrupulous Viking and how much of it was due to the torture I’d undergone . . . but I wasn’t exactly the same nice person, as this boy had just found out.

He screamed in pain, and people came running from all over, both his buddies and the Merlotte family and their friends, and then the police, both in and out of uniform, and it was all chaos for a good forty minutes.

Since Mindy had been standing there while the boy came in the back door—and when he was blubbering in pain, he himself admitted it—I was in the clear.

In fact, his hastily summoned parents were absolutely horrified, didn’t try to dodge the facts or excuse his actions. They were stand-up people, which was a huge relief, because the boy was Nathan Arrowsmith, the only child of the Reverend and Mrs. Bart Arrowsmith. Talk about your touchy situation.

What did Sam’s family do? Sam’s family had a prayer meeting.