AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I beamed at him through the blood dripping from my forehead. Despite the peril we were in, my heart sang and my smile was stupidly big. “Did it take me becoming a murderous psycho to prove that to you?”
He shook his head as he continued to run after Rix, coughing when he inhaled a bunch of smoke. “No. It took me picturing life without you in it to realize how that is simply not an option.”
I choked on a sob, grabbed his face and kissed his cheek. “Definitely not an option for me. Now put me down.”
He did as I commanded, but took my hand and we followed Rix toward the exit, coughing and wheezing from the thick billowing smoke. Rix shoved open the door with his shoulder, and we all spilled out, sucking in fresh air like we’d just been swimming underwater for far too long.
But we didn’t have time to celebrate. Somebody was bombing the compound, so it was only a matter of time before the entire thing went up.
We were situated close to the beach with a dense forest behind us, so we took off into the woods. The irony and sense of nostalgia was not lost on me in the least.
I’d been barefoot and running through the woods away from a bombed building when my life with these boys started. Was this the bookend to our adventure?
Was someone waiting out there to kill us?
A twig cracked, and I stopped, releasing Zane’s hand and lifting both Yakku blades, ready to fight.
Four people, three men and a woman, stepped out from behind an upturned tree, its exposed roots providing ample coverage.
The men had their guns cocked, pointed directly at us.
Zane, Rix and Jorik had their own guns pointed.
“Name. Strain and compound,” the red-haired woman with a face full of freckles said, her tone not altogether unkind.
“Haina. Triple-threat Hellcat—Kappa, Sigma, Theta. Compound Nine. We escaped Nine, were recaptured and brought here to Six. We just escaped. Are you the ones bombing the place?”
She jerked her head in a nod, then pivoted her gaze to my men. “And them?”
“Verians with no enhancement. They detoxed last week.”
Her brows rose. So did those of her companions.
“Wassheyour source?” the dark-haired companion with the hazel eyes asked, directing his question to Zane.
Zane nodded.
“And you survived the withdrawal?”
Zane nodded again.
“Nobody has ever survived a withdrawal from her blood before,” he mused, more to himself than anybody else. But he glanced at the woman he was with, leaned over and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and smiled.
“I am Olia from Compound Seven, and these are my… “
“Pieces of your heart?” I asked with a smile. “I have three myself.”
Olia’s cheeks flooded with color, but she smiled. “Yes. The pieces of my heart. Maxxon, Cypher and Alaric.” Maxxon had been the one to speak up first, so I assumed—much like Zane was—that he was their leader. Or Olia was their true leader, but among the three men, Maxxon was in charge.
I nodded at each of them in greeting. “I’m Haina, as I said, and this is Zane, Rix and Jorik.” I took a deep breath but didn’t have a chance to speak before another explosion inside the compound made the ground shake so much so that Zane, Rix and Jorik’s arms all shot out to protect me and keep me from falling.
“I’m okay,” I said, gently brushing them off. But I noticed that Maxxon, Cypher and Alaric had done the exact same thing to Olia.
Swallowing and confident that if shit suddenly went sideways with these three, my men had my back, I met Olia’s green gaze dead-on. “What doesRevolution Infernomean to you?”
Her eyes flared like cut green gems caught in a ray of sunshine. Cautiously, she spoke. “It means a new beginning. A chance to start over and be free. What does it mean to you?”
I grinned at her and dropped my weapons to the ground. “It means we need to light the fire and let others just like us see the smoke.”
Her smile was beautiful and wide. “How can I help you stoke the flames?”
