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“They attacked first,” I call out.
“And let me guess, you finished it?” The man spits out his gum and lifts the gun. A shot fires and I grip the back of Griffin’s shirt as panic surges through me. Seconds bleed into an eternity. No one moves. I peer around Griffin’s large frame to look around at my men, terror freezing me in place until I see the man drop his gun to the ground, a bright red liquid coating his white shirt in the dim evening light before he, too, falls to the ground, his gum falling out of his mouth and rolling across the dirt.
“What did you do?” The second man barely reaches for his own gun before Max is on him with a knife to his throat. William keeps his gun raised.
“Unless you want to join your friends in their crowding grave, you’ll get us into that school,” Max demands, his voice threatening. He presses the knife against his throat until a small bead of blood slides down his throat and he whimpers.
“Fine, whatever you want, please don’t kill me. I didn’t even know those guys all that well. Seriously. I only met them a few days ago. The only reason I stuck with them was to survive.” A wet spot appears on the front of his pants and I feel like this one won’t be too much of a threat.
Max grins.
23
MAX
Holding this knife to a man’s throat makes me feel powerful. Invincible. Like nobody will ever hurt me again. The only downside is I can’t kill him. At least not yet.
It’s an awkward walk, and only when I accidentally put a nick in his neck do I reposition myself and remove it, holding it out toward him instead while Griffin and I walk along either side of him with Emily behind us and William behind her. Buddy trots alongside her with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth like we’re on a midday stroll. Except the sun is setting and we’ve got a brand new hostage leading us into a possibly dangerous situation. We have a lot of trust riding on this man, and I don’t like it. If I still had that grenade, we could throw it at the school and destroy everyone inside, making it easier for us to gain entry. Except that would also destroy everything inside, so…maybe not a good plan. Still, I miss that grenade. It was a beauty when it went off, though.
I keep chancing a glance back at Emily to make sure she’s still there, even though I know she is.
We dressed her in one of our oversized hoodies with the hood pulled over her head to hide her hair, and her small hands hide in the large front pocket. After the issues we’ve had with shitty men, we’re not taking any chances. I even asked Griffin for his handcuffs, but he caught on and refused to let me handcuff her back in the town to wait for us. I don’t understand why. It was a brilliant plan. Oh well.
When I look back at her again, my gaze roams across her body from head to toe. I tried to get her to wear a pair of pants I’d pulled off one of the dead guys, but she refused to. So then I put them on myself and she tried on mine, but they keep falling down. I hope her girly legs don’t give her away, because she’s so difficult to dress in a way that makes her unnoticeable. The rest of us have on hats or the hoods from our jackets to cover our faces, all of us dressed in black, the best form of disguise we could come up with in the moment. Except for Emily, with her perfect, tanned legs on display. My pants grow tight. Dammit.
“You doing all right back there, pet?”
“Yes,” she responds. I’m about to ask her more questions when my new hostage stops.
“Through there,” he says, pointing straight ahead. “There will be someone on patrol. We’ll need to get by them first.”
“Why don’t we go straight on through?” I reach behind me for Debbie.
“We don’t want to raise alarm before we can even get inside,” Griffin says from the man’s other side. “Let’s try to reason with them first. We don’t always have to go straight for blood.”
“Fun killer.”
Griffin rolls his eyes. I don’t see him do it, because it’s gotten dark and all, but I can feel it. “You don’t have to kill everyone you come across.”
“I didn’t kill you.” I push the man forward to continue leading us there. Then, before I move, I turn to Emily. “You all strapped in with those weapons I love on you?”
She nods her head beneath the hood and shows me her concealed weapons, including the knife necklace she wears beneath the hoodie, and even lifting her clothing to show the knife I hand carved snuggled inside her bra holster. I realize the man has turned to look at her, too, and I smack his head forward with a snarl. “Look at her again and I’ll shove this knife into your gut and then storm the school, my damn self.”
I wait until William has finished helping her lower the hoodie back down and then I move our little group forward.
We break the tree line and I see two men walking back and forth, securing the perimeter like the guy said they would be. I suppose I should probably learn his name. After all, we are going into the unknown, possibly facing a threat. He might even die.
Nah, I don’t need to know his name.
I lift my chin in a signal for Griffin to take it from here, and I fall back with Emily, sending William on ahead. I stop her and lift her hood back enough to see her amber eyes glistening in the pale moonlight. They look worried. Oh, nothing is wrong, pet.
“Are you worried?” I ask.
She thinks it over for a second before breathing out a “No.”
I grin. She acts fearless, but I know she’s likely shaking in her over-worn boots we’d snagged from a rotter. “Don’t hesitate to use those knives. Remember, stab first and don’t look back.”
“You give the best pep talk,” she says with a grin of her own. “But I don’t want to kill someone who doesn’t give me a reason to. They might not be dregs, or even the slightest bit dangerous, we don’t know yet. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. Like I gave you when we first met.”
