Page 72 of Born Savage

Well, for the most part.

I couldn’t lie and say their features had been completely transformed as my memories of the boy who’d saved me were rearing their ugly heads, adding to the confusion of how I felt about him. He was the same yet enhanced, partially because he’d grown into a man. One handsome man.

What was I doing thinking about how good looking he was when we had fifteen killers waiting outside?

“Stay behind me,” Rage said, knowing I wouldn’t respond because we were stepping onto the terrain. He’d held a brief conversation, laying out plans for the attack. It rang of a military operation, which I wasn’t used to. I preferred working alone, which made both hiding and escaping much easier. “Do not venture off. Understood?”

But he was in charge and obviously used to his people obeying him.

“I hear you. I know how to fight.”

“You don’t know what we’re up against.”

“And neither do you.”

“Stop talking,” Wrath hissed. The Savage was right. Drawing any attention to our approach was reckless.

I’d chosen a pistol instead of an assault rifle, learning the hard way that I was best served with more hand-to-hand combat instead of use of the automatic weapons. Plus, the ammunition was limited, conservation necessary to keep us alive.

As with any group of unwanted people, there was always a chance they’d managed to create heat sources using animals as decoys. It had been done before. That was why when we were outside, we moved in formation.

I didn’t need to be told what to do. I’d been down the road of hunting assholes who’d tried to steal from us. Granted, I preferred being in the city and when light was used as my friend and a level of protection. There were too many unwanted creatures after dark.

Including wild animals.

There was no sign of a storm. In fact, the ugly haze from the moon had fallen over the earth. Maybe Rage was wrong. I almost snickered from the thought.

We walked a good distance away from the compound and farther into the darkness, our only light that of a distant moon, the strange glow almost always covered by a haze. At least the powerful glow along with my knowledge of every inch of the area surrounding the compound would come in handy.

While the Verndari were in stealth mode, easily making their way toward the enemy, I realized my heart was beating so rapidly the sound might give our position away.

I stayed behind Rage as he asked, at least until a noise caught my attention. It wasn’t where a heat node was positioned, which was why I was alarmed. No, I shouldn’t have ventured off, but I’d reflect on that later.

A wrong step and I felt the trip wire the second I moved against it. That set off a chain of events, including some sort of a flash bomb detonating. A trap had been set and I’d walked right into it.

The surprise of light and sound forced a screech from my lungs while pitching me backward by several feet. I landed on the ground with a hard thud while the flash of light continued to blind me. The bastards hadn’t accounted for a pile of rubble to catch fire, but in this instant, light could be used for instead of against us.

I felt Rage’s reaction, still silent but changing course immediately. His heavy boots crunched against the dry turf as he rushed in my direction.

Whoever the people were attacking, they had balls of steel, completely unconcerned about making noise so late at night.

The pistol was knocked from my hand, tossed into the darkness. As I took a sweep with my hand trying to locate it. movement caught my attention.

There was no additional advance warning, no time to regroup. All I managed to do was scramble to my feet, yanking my sword into my hand. I stepped into the attack, catching the bastard off guard. With a single swing, I thought I’d taken him out, but he was too quick for me, jumping backward.

The plan of attack was now ruined by my incompetence, but I had no intention of allowing a single member of the gang to take advantage.

Just seeing the man’s face was almost as horrible as the moment. It wasn’t that his hair was long and scraggly or that his clothes were filthy, maybe soaked in blood. Nor even because of the horrific jagged scar on one side of his face, but his eyes as they stared at me.

And the smile on his face.

Pure evil.

There was no humanity left in him, no sense of decency. Merely an extreme need to maim and kill.

While rare for me, I felt a huge rush of terror. These bastards were much more dangerous than any Savage or Night Dweller.

Before I was able to make another move, the weather completely changed in the blink of an eye. Wind swept through the stubbled foliage, a horrific chill forcing shivers down my spine.