Moving into the living room, I throw my knife with pinpoint accuracy and watch as it lodges in the throat of the fucker closest to me. His hands jump up from his assault rifle and go for his throat. Rushing up to him, I grab his body and spin it around.
Dropping my Glock, I reach around him and take hold of the rifle he has dangling in front of him.
Lifting the rifle, I peek over his shoulder and see his own guys trying to figure out what to do.
That’s tough shit for them.
Pulling the trigger, I let out a quick three-round burst at the next person in line.
Accuracy from this angle is almost impossible, but hitting the guy in his knee, his nuts, and his helmet seems to work.
He falls to the floor, either dead or wishing he was dead.
Movement to my right instantly draws my attention. Another man lifts his arm to fire at me. I guess he’s past the whole not shooting at a friend issue.
Bullets tear into the corpse I’ve been using as a shield, and one rips through the arm, punching into my chest like a sledgehammer.
Fuck.
Getting hit with a vest on is a feeling I’ll never get used to.
Grunting, I fall back slightly as the man shoots another round at me.
Bullets tear through the corpse’s unarmored sections, ripping at my clothes.
One bullet manages to lance through my calf and the nasty graze lights up, erupting in fire.
Shit.
This body isn’t going to hold up for much longer.
Screaming in anger, I can feel the rage in me begging for release.
Hoisting the body up, I start to jog toward the fucker firing at me. With each step I take, I pull the trigger on the rifle I’m trying to use.
I may as well be shooting blanks though for all the damage it doesn’t do to the asshole in front of me.
My shots, however, cause just enough distraction for me to get in close and topple all three of us to the ground in a pile of limbs.
I’ve lost my knife somewhere and the rifle I was firing has run dry.
“You motherfucker!” I scream at the man beneath me as I pull the pin attached to a flashbang on the dead cop’s vest.
Rolling as far away as I can, I cringe when the flashbang goes off in our mess of shit.
For the next minute, I regret my very existence. Especially as I struggle to shake off the screaming whistles in my ears and head while I check to see if the fucker is still alive.
When I see him roll away from the dead body, I groan.
“Why don’t you fucking die!” I bellow and slowly stand up, using my now fucked-up beyond all repair couch as support.
He pushes up on his hands and knees and I hobble over to him. Grabbing him by the helmet, I yank and drag his ass toward the front of the living room.
I’m happy as fuck I’ve kept up my cardio because he’s making it a bitch to drag his ass over to my fucking iron skillet.
Pulling the helmet off the fucker’s head, I grab the skillet and look into his dazed eyes.
“You got something on your mind?” I ask then slam the skillet into his unprotected head.
It takes me exactly four hard hits before I’ve completely caved in his head and splattered blood and brain bits all over me.
19
Sophia
Dumped face-first into the backseat of a police SUV, I immediately try to push myself up, struggling with my hands cuffed behind my back.
“Go, go, go!” someone shouts as the doors open and slam shut.
One man squeezes into the seat in front of me and another pushes in from the back. Cramming me between them.
“This is a stupid idea,” Dickers growls as the SUV lurches forward, the tires squealing against pavement.
The motion pushes me against the seat and throws me off balance.
“What’s so stupid about it?” Trent asks angrily from somewhere around my feet.
Focused on trying to slide my knees forward so I can get some leverage to push up, I twist my head enough to see that he is indeed in the back with me.
Noticing my attention, Trent glances at me then scowls. “Here, let me help you.”
“All of it!” Dickers bellows from the driver’s seat as Trent grabs me by the arm and helps me sit up. “This whole plan of yours is fucking stupid!”
“It fucking worked!” Trent shouts back.
“That remains to be seen,” Dickers snarls and then I feel his eyes on me.
Glancing up as I get situated on the edge of the seat, I see him glaring at me through the rearview mirror with murder in his eyes.
A cold shiver travels down my spine.
He wants to kill me and he’s not even trying to hide it.
Trent looks between Dickers and me. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly that,” Dickers snaps. “We don’t know if it worked because you’re making a lot of fucking assumptions.”
“Assumptions about what?” Trent snaps back, keeping his grip firmly on my arm.
My skin crawls beneath his touch, and I want to yank away from him. I want to yell at him to get his fucking hand off me. He doesn’t have a right to touch me. I’m not his.
But I’m not stupid.
I’m trapped in a car full of men who may or may not want to kill me. Two of them, at least, have already had a part in killing my father.
It makes me sick. But with the way Dickers is already looking at me like he’d rather stomp me under his boot like a bug than see me breathing, I know Trent may be my only chance of making it out of this in one piece.
For now, I have to play nice with him and use him to get out of this. Use him to find a way to help James.
Fuck… James…
“You’re assuming she’s—” Dickers starts to say before Trent cuts him off.
“Sophia, are you okay?” Trent asks, his brow pinched with concern as he takes in the tears in my eyes and the sad, crumbled expression on my face.
I shake my head and let my tears fall freely.
“I don’t know what’s going on…” I sniffle, not even needing to play it up.
My emotion, my sadness is very real. But not because of what’s happening to me. I’m fucking terrified for James. I’m terrified that he’s going to be hurt or worse…
I might lose him too.
Lose the little family we’ve been building with him, me, Fluffers, and Mitzy.
If that happens… if he leaves me…
I think it will be the final nail in my coffin. I will truly have no reason to live or go on.
Letting go of my hand, Trent reaches for my face, like he wants to brush my tears away, but I flinch away from him.
“We’re rescuing you,” he frowns at me.
Dickers snorts. “Rescuing, yeah. I guess that’s what we’re calling it.”
Trent whips his head in Dickers’s direction, opening his mouth to tell him off some more.
But a new voice cuts in from up front.
“That’s enough,” Jacob, Trent’s father, says firmly, trying to take control of the situation. “We can argue about these things later. Right now, we still have a mission to accomplish.”
Hearing Jacob Morrison’s voice… My father’s best friend. The man he trusted the most in this world, who ultimately stabbed him in the back, turns my entire body cold.