I slip once, hit the ground hard, feel the skin peel from my palm on a shard of broken bottle. I choke on the urge to sob, instead digging my nails into the dirt and pulling myself up.
The old admin building is the only landmark in sight. I aim for it, knowing it’s probably a trap but not caring. There’s nowhere else to go.
The closer I get, the worse my vision. Blood is in my eyes now, sweat in my mouth. My hair sticks to my neck and face, plastered down by the humidity and the heat of running for my life. I’m light-headed, blinking in and out of reality.
At the foot of the steps, a shadow blocks my path.
I skid to a stop, every muscle tensed for violence.
The shadow moves, separating from the stone. For a second I think it’s Bam, but the shape is wrong—taller, leaner, moving with a smoothness Bam doesn’t possess.
Colton.
But not the Colton I’ve seen around. This Colton is a vision from a nightmare: shirt splashed red from collar to navel, left hand clamped around a pistol, right hand holding his own bicep to stem a slow leak of blood. His hair, usually neat, is wild and matted. His eyes are blank and merciless.
He sees me, doesn’t flinch.
“Come here,” he says.
I hesitate. “Are you—”
He snatches my wrist, hard, and jerks me up the steps, ignoring my yelp of pain. He drags me through the doors and slams them behind us. The interior is lit only by the floodlights lining the room. The floor is slick underfoot; I realize as I stagger that it’s not water, it’s blood, pooling from the dead man sprawled behind a chair.
Colton shoves me behind an overturned desk. “Stay,” he whispers, and I do, because I have no choice.
He covers the door with the pistol, breathing shallow, watching with a calm that borders on deranged.
I try to speak, but my mouth is glued shut.
He never looks at me, just keeps his eyes on the entry. “They’ll come here,” he mutters. “They know it’s the only sanctuary left they haven’t checked.”
My ribs hurt. My feet hurt. My brain is a soup of horror and adrenaline.
I finally croak, “Why are you helping me?”
He blinks. Not at the door, but at me, just for a second. “Because he loves you,” Colton says. “And because I love him.”
He means Bam. He means loyalty, the way only the Feral Boys understand it.
I laugh, but it comes out a croak.
He holds up a hand for silence. “Three more. At least. Maybe more. I’ll slow them down. You need to hide.”
I want to say, “With what, you’re bleeding out,” but the look on his face shuts me up.
I crawl under the desk, scraping my stomach on the random bits on the floor, curling up into the smallest ball I can. The world is dark, deadly. I stare at the desk above me, and in the thin strips of light I see flakes of blood, hair, and something that might be skin.
The front doors rattle. Colton moves, silent and precise, one hand on the barrel, the other wrapped tight around the grip.
The doors burst open.
Two men, guns up, all business. The first clears the left, the second sweeps the center, and in that instant Colton fires twice. The first shot drills the center guy straight through the eye; the second catches the left one in the mouth, teeth and bone spraying across the marble, but not before he gets off a shot, hitting Colton in the chest.
Colton staggers back, slides down the wall, and sits in the pool of blood.
I crawl to him, ignoring the pain in my legs, my arms, my everywhere.
He’s grinning. His teeth are pink.
