AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We’ve got company,” he announced.
I leapt for the guns I’d kept at the ready next to my sleeping bag. I had a feeling we’d be abandoning nearly everything else we’d brought into the factory with us. Garrison and Blaze kicked aside their own blankets, pistols in hand. Blaze’s gaze darted around the room. “How many? What are we dealing with?”
“Several cars just pulled around back. If we’re fast enough—”
Dess was already racing to the room where we’d stashed her brother. But we wouldn’t have made it out in time regardless. It seemed more men had shown up in the few seconds it’d taken Julius to rouse us. Engines roared near the front door as well.
They were surrounding us.
“How the hell did they find us?” Garrison grumbled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Julius said. “You, handle Carter. We need Dess able to fight. And let’s get out of here before even more of these assholes show up.”
For once, Garrison didn’t make any snarky remarks about the indication that he was the least skilled fighter out of the five of us. He knew his talents lay elsewhere, and I doubted he wanted Dess hindered in combat any more than Julius did. He dashed over to catch the boy’s elbow where Dess was just urging him upright and hustled him toward the rest of us. Dess snatched up a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, her eyes gleaming with nervous anticipation.
Julius swept his arm, urging us toward the window closest to where we’d parked the car. We’d left the pane propped open specifically in case we needed to make a hasty exit while the doorways were more of a danger. We all hurtled toward it, leaving sleeping bags and blankets behind without a care.
Julius shoved the window higher up and sprang onto the ledge—just as a multitude of bodies slammed through the doors at either end of the main room. Our commander opened fire outside as the rest of us blasted away at the men coming at us from the inside now.
“Don’t kill them unless you have to,” Dess said, taking one shot and another that simply incapacitated the attackers she’d aimed at—one bullet smashing through a man’s gun hand, another toppling one with a wound through the thigh. “The Blood Hunter is probably forcing these people to come after us like the others. They’re just trying to survive.”
“Ussurviving is my first priority,” I said, even as my awareness sharpened with my sniper instincts homing in on my targets. “If anyone hurts you, they’re dead.”
She didn’t bother to argue, picking off more men with her impressively honed aim. I followed her example, disarming and crippling with my shots rather than outright killing.
But there were too many of them to follow that ethical stance all the way to its limit. When several of the men pointed their guns at us at the same time, I had to add a few kill shots to the mix to ensure I hit all of them hard enough to stop them in time.
“All clear outside,” Julius hollered, leaping through the window. I automatically bent to give Dess a leg up, still firing with my other hand. My bullets caught more wrists and calves and thighs, toppling men left and right—and occasionally slamming right into their skulls when I saw no other option. Not one of them managed to get a good shot in at my crew.
As I hefted Carter and then Garrison after Dess through the window, a sense of cool exhilaration spread through my mind, only intensifying my focus. I did love this woman, with every particle of my being, but that emotion wasn’t a distraction from my work. Quite the opposite. The knowledge that I had her fighting alongside me and the determination to protect her bolstered my motivation and energy for the battle like nothing else ever had.
These unfamiliar feelings that’d been emerging inside me were making mestronger, not weaker.
Blaze vaulted over the window ledge next. More shots rang out on the other side of the wall—some of our attackers had dashed around to confront us once they’d realized our gambit. I took down a few more before heaving myself over the ledge after the others.
Garrison had jumped into the driver’s seat of the minivan, Carter staring out the back window with a bewildered, near terrified expression. Dess blasted the kneecap of a man charging toward us and caught another in the forearm, forcing him to drop his weapon, but a third attacker loomed, hefting a rifle, none of him visible to me other than the top of his head showing beyond hers.
I didn’t have a choice. My next bullet shattered apart his skull.
Dess let out a rough breath, but she didn’t criticize my methods. She knew as well as I did that this war was an imprecise situation at best. Staying alive mattered above all else, as much as I’d rather not destroy the lives of men who’d been forced into coming at us.
This was the Blood Hunter’s doing like so much else. Fuck that prick and all his influence over this city—and who knew how much of the rest of the world too. We needed to destroyhimbefore he ruined even more lives.
The van’s engine growled. “Get in!” Garrison hollered.
Everyone dove into the vehicle, Julius and I providing cover for Blaze and Dess before leaping in ourselves. We fired off a few more shots through the open windows as Garrison hit the gas. The van groaned and lurched forward, speeding away from the factory and the men who’d done their best to end us.
“He found us again,” Dess said, her voice tight. “Where the hell do we go now?”
Blaze had already flipped open his laptop, because of course he had. His fingers clattered across the keys. “I was working on something last night,” he said. “It might only take another hour or two to get all the information we’ll need…”
“Need to dowhat?” Garrison demanded with typical impatience.
Blaze glanced around at us with the nearly manic grin I’d learned to be wary of. “To make it a lot harder for the Blood Hunter to manipulateanyoneinto doing his bidding.”
Julius nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He slapped the back of Garrison’s seat. “Keep driving while our computer guru does his work. And let’s keep the tires on the road this time?”
Garrison let out a rough chuckle. “I’ll do my best.”
