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Gunfire added to the nightmarish soundtrack of crackling flames, hissing water, metal groaning, people screaming, and guttural shouts. In the distance? Sirens.
Too far away.
I stayed low as I made sure of where Liam had moved. My heart was in my throat as Jasper appeared much like Liam had, both on their feet, both firing systematically as they approached the crashed truck.
There would be no questions for whoever was inside. They wanted to hit us. We hit back. A wild kind of joy kicked to life at the image. Jasper was okay. I pushed away from Liam’s car and hurried toward Jasper’s overturned vehicle.
Freddie collided with me, and we went down as the car itself exploded. Freddie rolled to take the impact of the landing. The blast of noise threatened to deafen me even as he pushed his hands over my head and rolled again to put himself between me and the explosion.
Heat ballooned upward. Sound rushed back in to the vacuum as I stared up at him. He was already standing, hauling me upward. My left hand was in his right, and I still had the gun clutched in my right hand. Light shimmered off his blade that I noticed he had in his free hand.
I turned to look past him to where Liam and Jasper were trading fire with someone else. Bullets whined through the air, the thud of them hitting metal galvanizing us both into motion.
Two hit the front of the car, and another skipped off the road not far from us. Yet another seemed to kick up dirt and rocks. The scatter of stones jumping included one bouncing off my hip. It stung, but I ignored it.
“We need to go,” Freddie said, tossing a look over his shoulder to where Liam and Jasper were. “Still got on flats?” He looked at my feet.
“I can run,” I promised. Even in the dress, I could run. I could tear it if I needed…
“Stay with me,” he said, his expression fierce in the shadows as he cut a look behind us and then we were going. Hand in hand, he led me across the street and passed wrecked cars.
I made the mistake of glancing inside one. The blood all over the steering wheel and windshield promised if they weren’t dead, they would be. The car had impacted other vehicles on the street. But it was the cracked glass radiating out from a single hole that saidwhythe car crashed.
“Don’t look, Boo-Boo,” Freddie ordered, even though it was hard not to trace the path of destruction around us. There were more wrecked cars and shattered glass as a figure loomed up out of the darkness, and I had to swallow a scream as Freddie shoved the guy into a wall.
A gurgle escaped the figure as air whistled out and he clasped a hand to his throat. The arc of blood splashed across the damp concrete, and it wasn’t until a gun slid out of the guy’s hand and skittered across the alley that I recognized the threat.
“Don’t look,” Freddie repeated, tugging my hand to urge me along. I cut my gaze past the soon-to-be-dead man and down the alley.
“We need to get the gun,” I told him, and he let out a breath as I pulled free to snag it.
“Yeah, yeah,” Freddie said. “C’mon, Lara Croft, stay with me.”
I glanced at my pair of guns then at Freddie. A laugh bubbled up from me, and his grin was a slash of light in the darkness. It was ridiculous and delightful—a morbid kind of levity. Something I needed desperately, even as adrenaline pounded through my veins with every squeeze of my too-rapid pulse.
Freddie navigated the network of alleys like an expert. The sound of running feet would echo behind us. We took shelter in recessed doorways more than once, trusting the shadows to shield us.
The further we went, the quieter and steadier our steps were. Liam wanted us out of the line of fire. Even understanding the desire, I hated leaving them behind. At the same time, I stayed close to Freddie. Because the guys were safer if they could fight without worrying about us.
Freddie lifting up his hand to motion for me to wait, stopped me in place. He wasn’t moving either, just—listening, I thought. His head tilted like he could track a sound I wasn’t hearing.
Not arguing, I gave him the time he requested. Two fingers. He wanted two minutes. I nodded even if he wasn’t glancing at me. He made it five steps. Five. Before a shadow loomed up out of the darkness and caught him in the chest.
The blow knocked him into the wall. He crashed into the brick, hitting it with a kind of meaty thump. I raised the gun Liam had given me, sighted the guy as he turned toward me and rushed forward.
Breathe. Wait for the beat of my pulse. Squeeze the trigger on the exhale. The gun had a kick, but I was ready for it, and I squeezed off two shots in rapid succession. He jerked with the first bullet, but the second halted him entirely.
The shock on his face burned an imprint into my brain as he stared at me, slack-jawed. Then he collapsed. There was no time to enjoy the victory because a blow caught me right in the crook of my elbow. The sharp jab sent pain skittering down to my fingertips.
The gun fell from my nerveless fingers, even as my new assailant gripped my left wrist, jerking it up and back to twist my arm behind me. Tears sparked in my eyes at the pain radiating up to my shoulder. I never got a shot off with that gun as he took it from my hand and shoved me against the brick.
It scraped at the lace of my dress, tearing it. Worse was the hot breath on my cheek and a very hard erection pressed against my spine. He gripped my ass with his free hand.
“I like a little fight in my whores,” he whispered against my cheek then he licked me. Disgusted didn’t cover it as I slammed my head back against him.
The bite of his fingers tearing at my clothes couldn’t compete with the meaty crunch of his nose or his howl of pain.
“You fucking—” The next words died unspoken as he let out a strangled sound. The weight on my arm slacked off, and I yanked away. I met Freddie’s gaze over the guy’s shoulder as Freddie plunged a knife into him over and over.
