AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Now,” the hacker murmured, standing.
Julius, Talon, and I leapt to our feet and sprang forward. Without looking back, I knew Blaze and Garrison would make their way to the elevator shaft while we did the dirty work.
Talon charged up the staircase, and I flew down it, dropping to grab my second gun from my boot as I went. My momentum whipped back my hair.
All my attention narrowed down to the squad of five men lounging in the booth Garrison had indicated. I noted the carefully sculpted scruff on their jaws, the leather jackets that hung off their bulky forms, the bottle of brandy someone had bought now empty on the table between their glasses. The twitch of their heads toward me as they registered the sudden action around them—
But all that was in fleeting seconds, the space of a heartbeat or two. Then I was diving into their midst, pulling the triggers with my two guns aiming in separate directions.
We’d picked the guns and ammunition for both accuracy and more moderate power. Bullets that tore straight through bodies with enough force to crack the glass behind them would have screwed us over too. These would embed themselves in our targets’ flesh and lodge there as the blood flowed out around them.
But I still had to aim well. Hit the fleshy parts that offered plenty of blood flow while also proving instantly fatal. We still wanted impact, but we couldn’t afford any flailing around as the life drained out of them. Not when these targets were such skilled criminals themselves, equally armed and dangerous.
I shot one man three times in the chest in quick succession—above and below his heart to puncture the aortas and then right into the heart itself. As his body keeled over, blood gushed over the table and across the floor. At the same time, I shot one of his colleagues in the throat. More blood spouted out of his mouth and neck as he tumbled over.
Their three companions were leaping up with noises of shock. Those noises died as I buried bullets in two of their throats too. The fifth guy, the one who’d be our survivor to return to his larger organization and everyone they knew to spread the word, I simply shot in both arms, rendering them temporarily useless. He wasn’t going to be tossing back any more drinks—or aiming his own weapons at us.
I whirled and dashed back up the stairs without a second’s hesitation. Julius had already taken down three of the four men in his first group. He was just shooting the second guy in the other booth. I blasted the third and fourth in the skull, one in the front and one in the back thanks to the way they were standing. The fifth cringed and spluttered on the floor as Julius kicked his gun out of his hand.
Exhilaration rushed through me. I’d never had a job quite like this, and it felt good to stretch my skills again, to test the limits of what I was capable of. Especially next to men who were equally capable.
We were a pretty fucking fantastic team.
Speaking of capable men—
My gaze leapt to Talon on the floor above us. He was just plunging his knife into the chest of one of the men among his targets, two already lying dead from gunshot wounds, another’s throat slit.
Talon launched himself at the fifth, who was groping for a weapon, and sliced that hand neatly off through the forearm. He whipped the severed limb into the tiger’s enclosure, where the predator pounced on it with a pleased growl. Then he hurtled down the stairs to join us.
As Talon and I moved to the elevator shaft where Blaze and Garrison were already waiting, Julius held up his hands.
“We’re done here,” he shouted, his voice ringing through the entire club. Some of the other patrons had frozen, flattening themselves against the furniture defensively; others were groping for their own weapons.
Julius continued quickly, wanting to get his message out before we faced any backlash—if anyone dared. “We don’t want to kill anyone who doesn’t deserve to die. Remember what’ll happen if you fire a shot and it goes badly. Well, we won’t be the only ones who fall.” He gestured to the glass surfaces around us. “This was just a reminder of the consequences if you mess with the Chaos Crew. Leave us be, and we’ll leave you be too.”
That sentence was the signal to depart. I hooked my rappelling line onto the elevator cable in sync with the men. With a collective breath, we dove into the abyss below, soaring down the shaft out of the Funhouse.
Not a single shot rang out after us.
