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Holy fuck. What the hell is happening right now? I knew Empire would eventually track me down, but never in my wildest dreams did I think Liv would betray me like this.
“Come out, Oakley,” Liv says from the opposite side of my door as I scramble through my room, desperately searching for the kitchen knife I stashed in here earlier. “We have the whole house surrounded and orders to bring you in dead or alive. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”
No, no, no, no. This isn’t happening.
Liv is supposed to be family. But then, so was my father.
“Screw you, Liv,” I yell through the locked door. “And for the record, your meatloaf tasted like feet. It can rot in hell with you.”
“Don’t be like that, O,” she says, gripping the handle and rattling the locked door with the force of a cargo train.
Someone appears in my bedroom window and my brain turns to mush, having no idea what to do or how to save myself. Liv said the house was surrounded, and I can guarantee these assholes had similar training to what the guys had. They’re probably all trained killers and I’m just . . . me.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What do I do?
Trying to channel my inner Dalton with his fucked-up little craving for violence, I race across my room, scrambling through the shit on my bedside table before finally curling my fingers around the handle of the serrated bread knife. It’s not the best kind of knife for the job. I would have preferred one of those heavy-duty butcher knives, but this will have to do.
Hurrying across the room, I flatten myself against the wall right beside the window, listening to the sickening sound of the guy breaking the glass and reaching in. The blinds are blocking his view, but with one quick, sharp yank, he tears the blinds right out of the frame.
They clatter to the ground, and I suck in a breath, my whole body shaking. Then, not being able to see me from his position outside the window, the guy begins climbing into my room. Without a moment of hesitation, I lash out with an ugly roar, my serrated knife sinking deep into his throat.
I yank it out, and blood spurts across the room, drenching me as I scream in horror, but if it’s his life or mine, I choose mine every damn time.
He grips his throat in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding, but judging by his gurgling and choking noises, there’s no coming back from this. He’s fucked.
Not having it in me to wait around to watch him die, I grab his big body and haul him the rest of the way through the window before quickly patting him down and stealing his gun. I’m terrified of what I might find outside this window, but I can’t stay here. Not now. I’m a sitting duck.
Keeping the gun firmly in my hand, I climb out of my bedroom window just as three gunshots sound through the house, wood splintering from my bedroom door.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
My eyes snap back across my room, realizing that Liv is trying to either break the door down or shoot through the lock. My time is running out. Scrambling the rest of the way out of the window, I hastily look left and right, trying to figure out a plan. When I see a body sprinting around the side of the house, I scream and hold up the gun without thinking, firing off three shots of my own.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
He goes down, gripping his shoulder, and I scream some more, my body violently shaking. Then despite being down with blood pouring from his shoulder, he still reaches for his gun. My eyes widen in horror, and I whip around, breaking into a sprint. I have no idea where the hell I’m going to go. But I have to get out of here.
BANG!
BANG!
The bullets whiz past my head as I race around the property, running straight to the boundary line and throwing myself at the fence between the houses. Gripping hold of the top, my feet scramble against the side of the wooden fence, trying to find purchase to help launch me up and over the top.
“OAKLEY,” I hear Liv screaming at my back. “DON’T BE FUCKING STUPID. YOU CAN’T OUTRUN THIS.”
Not knowing if she has seen where I’ve gone, I keep quiet as I finally get to the top of the fence and pull myself over into the neighbor’s yard. I drop to the ground, my knees buckling beneath me as I land.
The neighbor’s dog, Rocky, rushes into me, his tongue already on my face, and if it weren’t for all the treats and scratches I used to slip him, he’d probably be in attack mode by now.
Shakily getting to my feet, Rocky jumps up against me, knocking me back, and I shove him off me as I race across the lawn. “Not now, Rock,” I spit through my teeth before running right around to the side gate.
