Threshold Read Online Free

and into the kitchen. He kept a locked Sig Sauer above the fridge. He took out the metal case, punched in the code, and opened the lid. His weapon was gone.
    Shit, he thought.
    Moving faster, King headed for his bedroom, where he had an arsenal hidden in his closet. He stopped outside his bedroom door, which was open. He stuck his head into the room, taking a quick look. The mattress was on the floor and his single dresser was in its regular place. That’s when he saw a mound resting on top of the bed, silhouetted against the windows, which were lit from outside.
    His mind flashed back to the horrors he had found at the Siletz Reservation. He could smell the smoke and rotting bodies. Homes destroyed. Fires burning. Electrical wires twitching. He saw Fiona’s grandmother, trampled and crushed. And everywhere, mounds of strange gray dust left like a calling card. Just like the mound he saw on his bed.
    His chest began to ache as his heart pounded. “Fiona,” he whispered.
    He moved into the room and crouched by the bed. He reached out to the mound expecting to feel the same granular dust, but instead felt fabric. King let out a sigh of relief. The mound was his blankets.
    That’s when it happened.
    Three rapid-fire clicks.
    He was struck in the back.
    Then, as he spun, something hit his neck.
    The third hit his forehead and stuck.
    He reached up expecting to find some kind of hypodermic dart, but clenched his fingers around something soft and rubbery. As his fingers felt the suction cup tip, a high-pitch voice shouted from within the room, “I got him, Rook!”
    The lights switched on, filling every room of the home with one-hundred-watt warmth. King squinted in the light and as he searched the room for the source of the voice. He didn’t see her.
    “Up here,” Fiona said.
    King turned toward the bedroom door. Fiona, dressed in her black pajamas and black socks, stood on top of it, her back pressed into the upper corner of the room. Her black hair had been pulled back into a tight bun and she wore a black bandanna over her mouth. She held a dart gun in her hands. He recognized it as one of two bright-orange dart guns they had bought, but it had been painted black.
    Stan Tremblay, call sign Rook, shouted from the living room. “Sorry, King. Couldn’t stop her. I’m out!”
    “Where’s my gun?” King asked.
    “In the closet with the rest,” Rook replied.
    “Bye, Rook!” Fiona shouted.
    “Later, kid! Oh, and sorry about the kitchen floor, King.” The front door opened and closed a moment later.
    There were a thousand parental things King knew he should say at that moment. You could have broken your neck if you’d fallen from the door. You had me worried sick. We don’t aim guns at people. And there were just as many nonstandard chew-outs. What if I was armed? I could have shot you. I could have shot Rook.
    But he didn’t say any of that. Instead he said what he really thought. “That was pretty good.”
    “Pretty good?” Fiona said, her voice full of mischief. “You just got taken out by a girl. And I’m not even a teenager yet. I’d say it was amazing.”
    He could see her smiling with pride behind the mask. It was an infectious smile, which he was grateful for because it hid his true feelings. He had just been taken out by a twelve-year-old girl. The very girl he’d sworn to protect. Was he so distracted by Fiona’s presence in his life that he might actually fail to protect her?
    She saw his distraction and brought him back to the current situation. “So, are you going to get me down or what?”
    “You’re the ninja,” King said. “You get down on your own.”
    He started to leave the room. “Rook put me up here.”
    King gave a shrug, his smile spreading wider. “Taking out a target is useless if you haven’t planned your escape.” Halfway out the door, King felt a tug on his hair. A sudden weight on his back followed. Fiona had leaped from the door onto his back. She clung to him