They’d know I was under here.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Could I make it back to the hatch? Out the front? Through the smoke?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t have time to know.
I took one shaky breath, positioning myself as best I could in the cramped space, every muscle tight and trembling.
I raised the gun, lined up the shot...
Breathe.Gray’s voice in my head.
I inhaled, steadying.
Exhaled slow.
And I pulled the trigger.
BANG!
CHAPTER 68
AVA - MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT
The shot was deafening.
In the crawl space, it didn’t just echo; it exploded.
My ears rang, sharp and piercing, like static underwater. The recoil jolted up my arm and into my chest, and everything around me seemed to freeze, like the world had slammed on the brakes.
For a split second, I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
All I could hear was the warped, ghost-like thump of blood in my ears.
A strange echo. The scream took a second to cut through the fog.
It washim.
He hit the ground hard. I heard it more than saw it, the slam of his large body hitting the ground, The woosh of air leaving his lungs... the low, animalistic groan of pain. And then, his face.
His eyes found mine beneath the slats.
Wild. Furious. Unhinged.
Fuck
He started shouting, a string of curses and guttural rage, his body twisting toward the crawl space entrance. That snapped me out of it.
I moved.
Or I tried to.
I tried to turn, to spin myself around in the tight, suffocating dark. My elbows scraped the ground, my feet dug in, my hair caught on something above me... my hands slipped on damp earth. Behind me, wood groaned.
What was that?
