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The thought popped into my head that the squad attacking us now might not be so different from Petrov’s. The Blood Hunter obviously made a habit of getting any skilled people he could under his thumb. Was he blackmailing these men? Threatening their families?
“We don’t want to fight you,” I hollered over the sofa. “We know how the man you work for operates. You don’t have to do what he says. We’re trying to take him down so you don’t have to follow his orders anymore. Let us go, make it look like you did your best, and we’ll both win.”
One of them snorted and let off another few shots. “As if we can trust you to have our best interests at heart.”
“We both want the same thing,” Julius said, adding his appeal to mine. “To live without the Blood Hunter lording it over us. Why shouldn’t we work together instead of letting him divide us.”
“We don’t have any choice,” someone snapped back. “Someone’s got to die here, and it’s going to be you, not us.”
Well, if that was how they were going to be about it, we didn’t have a whole lot of choice either. Just like when faced with the remainders of my family, I intended to seemycrew survive, no matter who I had to go through to ensure that.
“Come out and fight like men,” a third man growled.
I sputtered a laugh. “You’re in for a cruel surprise if you think a man is the worst threat you’re going to face.”
I bobbed around the side of the sofa and whipped one of my knives across the room. It sank straight into one of our attackers’ throats, and he crumpled. The crew fired into the crowd again, and one of the men near the back yanked something out of a bag he was carrying.
“We can do things another way then,” he barked, and tossed the canister into the middle of the room.
The attackers immediately surged out the door. A faint shrieking sound carried from the container, and the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
“It’s a bomb!” I hollered. “Get out of the house!”
Julius and Talon barreled forward first, Talon taking a few precious seconds to yank open the closet door and heave a backpack full of weapons and ammo over his back. I scooped Carter off the sofa as quickly as I could and slung him over my shoulder like before. Garrison darted ahead, snatching my knife from the fallen man’s neck and tossing it back to me. As Blaze hurried after us, I snatched the handle out of the air and shot Garrison a grateful smile.
Of course, we were fleeing the bomb into the street where our attackers were waiting. Julius and Talon started shooting as they burst out the door, forcing the black-clad men to fall back. The rest of us dodged to the side, ducking behind our rental car. Julius managed to pick off two of the men who were closest to the vehicle just before a furiousboomreverberated through the house behind us.
The ground rocked beneath my feet, and fire shot out the windows. I ducked my head even lower, feeling my hair singe, covering Carter with my body. The brothers werereallynot going to be happy about the new state of their guest house.
The blast had thrown a few of our attackers off their feet. The Chaos Crew recovered first, Talon digging a fresh gun out of the backpack and tossing another to Julius. But as they took their next shots, an even less welcome sound reached my ears.
The wail of a police siren started up, way too close for comfort. It sounded like it was only a block or two away.
Blaze swore. “There’s no way they could have responded to the fight that quickly without advance warning.”
I glanced at him. “You mean the Blood Hunter tipped them off?”
Even as I said it, the sense that strategy made clicked in my head. The Blood Hunter wanted us disposed of by any means necessary. He hadn’t trusted the squad he’d sent after us to get the job done after we’d escaped similar attacks in the past, so he was counting on the cops to finish the job, just like we’d let the police wrap up our assault on his business at the airfield the other night. All he’d need to do was call in an anonymous tip, just like we had.
There definitely wouldn’t be any reasoning with cops. And I didn’t like the idea of being arrested any more than I wanted a bullet in my skull.
“Get in the car!” Julius bellowed. “Talon and I will cover you.”
They pulled their triggers, and the rest of us hauled open the passenger side doors. Garrison dove over the gear shift into the driver’s seat, fumbling with the keys. Blaze leapt in next to him. I dragged Carter into the back, bracing him on my lap like I was a mother cradling an immense baby. It wasn’t the most comfortable position I’d ever been in, but I didn’t have time to find a better place for him.
As Garrison gunned the engine, Julius flung open the door on the other side of the back seat. Flashing lights were just racing into view in the rearview mirror. Julius and Talon hurled themselves into the back, cramming in with me and Carter, and Garrison hit the gas before they’d even slammed the door closed.
We tore down the street. I couldn’t tell what had become of our original attackers, only that the bangs of gunfire had cut out. Had they taken off too to avoid their own arrests?
“The cops are following us,” Julius announced, craning his neck to peer out the back. I followed his gaze and spotted two police cars roaring after us, their sirens blaring away.
Garrison whipped around a turn.
“Can you lose them?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, taking a second sharp turn. “But I have an idea.”
“They’re gaining on us fast,” Blaze said. “This car doesn’t have the horsepower to outrun them.”
