I shift, the footsteps passing me. I count to ten and start to roll out. If?—
A bullet hits the steel wheel rim near me, ricocheting off, sparks bursting to lifebefore dying.
Fuck.
The feet run past. The bullet wasn’t meant for me.
I roll free, stay low to the ground, and dart over peeling tires and rusted truck parts. I edge around a tipped-over old trucking container.
“I see you,” a voice shouts. It’s gruff, angry. American. “I’ll take your head off and fuck it sideways if you don’t come out.”
I hold my breath as head-fucker rumbles by.
He’s not after me.
Gunfire rains through the air, sharp rips of sound tearing through the night. Then… silence.
Puffer suddenly appears, looking around like a spooked deer.
Our eyes meet. My adrenaline spikes high.Shit.
Puffer’s a girl.
One. I. Know.
Marlowe fucking Briggs.
Royal pain in the ass.
Realization knocks the wind out of me like a punch to the solar plexus.
What the hell’s she doing here?
Does she know what I am?
Marlowe’s holding a gun. At her feet is a body with a fucking badge.
But she’s staring up at me, lush mouth open, eyes wide and full of shock. Slowly, fury takes over the shock.“You.”
“Me.” I lunge, because I can’t let her get away, and if I don’t get to her, she just might get herself killed. Or me.
She tries to dodge. “Don’t touch me.”
“Shit.” A bullet narrowly misses her, and I turn and shoot.
A body hits the ground hard. I grab her. The contact jolts through me likea live wire.
More bullets fly.
Not from us.
We’re now in the light, completely exposed. I haul her to me, snatching her gun and dragging her across the path to a decaying truck corpse as she struggles against me. I shove the gun into the waistband of my jeans and, as a bullet hits the truck from the other side, I tackle her to the ground and roll us underneath the belly.
This is probably the worst time to remember how soft and warm she feels when she’s under me, despite her dancer muscles.
I nose along her throat, her skin like hot silk, her pulse thudding wild as I find her ear. “What the fuck, Marlowe?”
The world narrows to me and her and the fact that she’s under me. Dammit, she’s even prettier than I remember. And it’s the wrong time for me to realize that.
