“If my dad sent you, that must mean you’re CIA,” Dylan said. “Can you help us get her out?”
“This is bullshit,” Powell muttered. “Your girlfriend is probably already dead, kid. And as for you two”—he pointed at Olek and Mikhail—“you’d better get yourselves some paddles because you’re going to have to row your own canoe up the damn creek.”
“Canoe?” Olek frowned, clearly confused by the metaphor. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“He means that they’re not going to help us,” Dylan muttered.
“We didn’t say that—” Jayson began, but Powell cut him off.
“Damn right we did. Let’s go, kid. We’re taking you home.”
Dylan lifted his chin, the rebellious look back in his dark eyes. “I’m not going anywhere with you, asshole.”
Jayson swore. If he didn’t know better, he’d think this was a fake scenario Dick and those old doctors had come up with to drive his blood pressure through the roof and bring on phase two of the hybrid process.
“You’re coming with us if I have to knock you out and drag you home in a fucking sack, you silver-spoon brat,” Powell said, advancing on Dylan.
Just like that, the argument went from heated to out of control. Olek started shouting in Ukrainian while Mikhail did the same in Russian even as Dylan and Powell threatened each other in English.
Shit.
Jayson stepped between Dylan and Powell, shoving them apart just as the priest hurried over from the door where he’d been standing. He said something urgently in Russian, making frantic gestures with his hands, but Jayson was too busy trying to keep Dylan and Powell separated to pay attention. Suddenly, the front doors of the church burst open and slammed against the stone wall. The sound reverberated through the whole building and Jayson froze along with everyone else.
What the hell?
Powell immediately started for the door of the office, but Jayson stopped him with a gesture. Motioning everyone to be quiet, he walked over to the office door and opened it a crack. His stomach clenched. Five men dressed in the modified Russian uniforms of the local independent DPR militia were making their way up the center aisle. Two of them were carrying Vityaz submachine guns while the other three had AK-74M automatics.
Shit.
Jayson quietly closed the door. He and Powell weren’t equipped for this. All they had were small P-96 pistols with a few spare clips. They’d come in here for a simple rescue, not a firefight. But it looked like they were going to get into one whether they wanted to or not because those troops were coming their way fast and there was nothing to slow them down.
Jayson reached around behind him and slipped his 9mm out of the holster, then jacked the slide back and chambered a round. He gripped the doorknob and started to turn it when he felt a hand on his arm. He looked over his shoulder to see the priest standing there looking at him intently. The older man pointed at Jayson and the others, then at the row of windows behind them before gesturing at himself, then to the door that led to the main part of the church and the oncoming soldiers.
Jayson shook his head, knowing full well what the priest was suggesting. But the older man shouldered past him and pulled open the door before Jayson could stop him. Back straight, the priest strode boldly into the church, saying something in Russian as he advanced on the soldiers.
If there weren’t three terrified teens depending on Jayson to get them out of there, he would have gone after the priest, all that firepower out there be damned. The old man was going to get himself killed. Refusing to waste his sacrifice, Jayson turned and quickly motioned them toward the window. With the exception of Powell, no one moved.
“Go!” he hissed.
Powell opened the window just as the chatter of automatic weapons firing filled the church, echoing off the walls. In the silence that followed, something heavy hit the floor. Dylan and his friends stared at Jayson in horror, panic leeching the color from their faces.
Knowing they only had seconds until the soldiers charged into the office, Jayson grabbed Dylan and forcibly shoved him out the window. At least the kid was smart enough to keep quiet when he hit the ground. Olek and Mikhail quickly followed him out. Being the ass he was, Powell made sure he went next, forcing Jayson to wait to escape. The door of the office opened just as he dived out the window. The stab of agony in his back as he hit the ground brought tears to his eyes and a curse to his lips, but he didn’t have time to lie there and wait for the pain to subside. There was no way the soldiers could have missed seeing him.
Ignoring the numbness in his lower body, he scrambled to his feet and took off running. If he hadn’t taken the hybrid serum, he’d have still been lying on the ground waiting to get shot. As it was, he barely made it to the corner of the church before bullets chewed up the ground around him. He swore and ran harder, getting to cover before he took a round through the spine.
Powell and the kids were fifteen feet ahead of him. Dylan and his friends slowed, waiting for him to catch up.
“Don’t stop!” Jayson shouted.
He didn’t have to look behind him to know that the militia soldiers were on their tail. There was no way he and Powell could shoot their way out of this situation, not with three kids in tow.
“Mikhail!” he shouted as he followed them across a dimly lit street. “If you know a place nearby where we can hide, now would be a good time to show us.”
The Russian kid nodded and sprinted ahead, motioning with his hand for everyone to follow him.
Jayson hadn’t done a lot of cardio since his injury, and it showed. His lungs and throat were on frigging fire as he raced to keep up with them. It didn’t help that he had to slow down and pop off a few shots at the soldiers chasing them every so often. A few of the men went down, but reinforcements quickly took their place. Cursing, he emptied the remainder of his clip at them, then turned and sprinted after Powell and the kids.
Jayson started to wonder if Mikhail had a clue where the hell he was going when all four of them suddenly disappeared right in front of him. He dug into what reserves he had left—which wasn’t much—almost falling on his butt as he careened down a concrete-lined aqueduct that ran between a grimy industrial complex on one side and a slow-moving river on the other. A few seconds later, he slid to a stop at the bottom. Powell and the kids were bent over, their hands on their knees, gasping for breath.
