My neck hurt. So did my back. Fucking hell, everything hurt, but then again what did I expect after taking a nap in the trunk of a car with a six-foot-whatever dude jammed in beside me.
“Here? Where?” I was still half-asleep. How the fuck I managed to sleepandavoid nightmares, I had no clue.
“Beats me,” he muttered back as a car door slammed and boots crunched on gravel.
Connor wriggled away, turning onto his back so that as the trunk started to open—Wham!His boot hit the lid, slamming it into the gang guy’s face and sending him flying. Connor followed the movement through, springing out of the car and landing on his feet with a fluid grace that should not have looked so natural on such a big guy.
“W-wait!” the guy stammered as I scrambled to climb out of the trunk myself, my legs weak and wobbly as the blood started to flow again.
The guy was on the ground, blood pouring from his busted nose and his hands held out in front.
Connor bent, scooping up the guy’s gun from where he must have dropped it.
“Evelyn, shut your eyes and cover your ears,” he ordered, his voice like ice.
I blinked rapidly, sweat pouring down my spine and my lungs tight as I looked from the gun to the bleeding man and back. “What? Connor, you?—”
“Do it, brat!” he barked, and I instantly obeyed.
Even so, there was no mistaking the near-deafening sound of a gunshot a split second later as it echoed through the trees.
24
EVELYN
This was my opportunity to run. If he doubled back to the classroom to search again, he’d find me for sure. If I wanted any chance, I had to run. Now.
“Evelyn…come out, come out wherever you are!” the masked gunman sang through the empty halls, and I covered my own mouth to stifle my sobs as I made a break for it.
Sunlight hit my face as I burst through the doors, freedom so close I could taste it and then…
Bang!
The sound of the shot registered in my head before the pain, but then the pain waseverything.
I’d been shot. He’d shot me.
Warm hands shook my shoulders, making me moan in pain. Didn’t they realize I’d been shot?
“Come on, snap out of it!” a deep, gruff voice ordered.
My eyelids fluttered in confusion. Green eyes framed with dark lashes met mine and my reality blurred. “Ethan?” His eyes widened and my whole body quaked in relief. “Holy shit, Ethan—” then my lips were on his. My lifeline, pulling me from the depths of my trauma yet again.
He seemed startled but quickly wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close as he dominated my mouth with his own, stitching our very souls together with each stroke of his tongue. Rather than just pulling me from the darkness of my own mind, he kissed me like he was drowning, and I was his only hope for survival.
A low moan rolled through me as I reached for his waistband, desperate for more, but he broke away with a curse.
“Brat,” he growled. “Stop.”
Those two words were the equivalent of being struck by lightning, and I jerked away so violently, I smacked my head on the back of the car. The car we’d just spent hours traveling in the trunk of. The car that’d been driven by the man now lying dead in a pool of blood a mere twelve feet away.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, clapping a hand over my mouth. Then, in horror, I realized who I’d just been mouth-fucking like he was the last scoop of ice cream while I was PMSing. “No…”
My gaze snapped back to the dead man, and at the perfect circle between his eyebrows, and at the dark puddle slowly spreading… Nausea ripped through me like a freight train and I scrambled on hands and knees to the nearest bush to vomit.
“That’s a first,” Connor muttered, then gently held my hair back as I upended the full contents of my stomach. The last thing I’d eaten was the Swedish meatballs I’d made for dinner, and I could safely say they were not as good the second time. “You okay?”
I groaned, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “No.” I was so far fromokay,it was almost laughable.
