The problem? Pull a gun now when everyone knew there was no ammo anymore, and it looked like you were trying to scare the shit out of them with a useless prop. I’d have to put a hole in someone to prove I still had a working weapon or waste a bullet shooting an object to make the same point. Either way you looked at it, one bullet gone.
My focus came back to Liv. She blinked and rubbed some life into her cheeks. “How are we supposed to buy enough time to outrun five of them and still find another car?" she asked. "We've had no luck so far, so it's not like it's going to get any easier. Should we just go back to my apartment until we can figure it out? At least it’s safe there.”
Three kilometres from here? On foot? Not an option either, although I appreciated her including me in that scenario. “Pretty sure I’ve got their key.” I pulled the fob from my pocket. “It was beside a pile of corpses they put down.”
Her attention lowered to my hand. “Oh, my God.”
“And I have a gun.”
“What?” she asked, somehow whispering and shouting at the same time. She sat up straighter, her eyes widening as she glanced at the door and back at me. “Why am I only just hearing about this now?”
"I didn't want to scare you. I took a few guns from work after we abandoned the station, but they’re useless without ammunition. I've dumped all but one—a Glock with three bullets.”
Liv stared at me steadily as she processed the information. So many thoughts appeared to be flying around in her head that it made her impossible to read. “Why haven’t you used them on the dead?" she asked. "Or the men out there?”
“I had a full magazine in the beginning. Six months ago, I was down to four. Now? I’m saving the last three.”
Her eyes narrowed. "Why did you need to use one of them six months ago?”
I should have known my comment wouldn't get past her, or maybe Ihadknown, and I just needed to say the next part out loud. I locked eyes with her to make sure she got my meaning. “My brother was surrounded by a horde of corpses. He was bitten by one an hour earlier, and the new group was about to tear him apart."
Two dozen or more were coming at us from every direction, and we'd been working hard to keep ahead of the pack. When I climbed onto the loading dock of a transport company, Diego was still several steps behind me, and I crouched to reach for his hand. I never got the chance to grab hold of him. Two corpses tripped over each other and fell, the weight of them knocking him off his feet. Once you were down and they closed in on you, there was next to no chance of coming back. The memory of him staring up at me with wild eyes as the first one bit into him, the sound of his voice screamingshoot me, Cruz, fucking shoot mewould stay locked in my brain until I took my last breath.
Liv nodded slowly in understanding, her eyes flooding with tears. She pressed her lips together and looked away.
Silence lingered but there was nothing more to say, and the longer we sat idle without a plan, the easier we were to find.
Liv stood and let out a long breath, walking to the bathroom door and back again. She stopped in front of me with her hands on her hips, her thoughts apparently moving in the same direction as mine. “What are you planning with the key and the gun?” she asked, her voice soft.
I appreciated that she didn't comment on what I'd done to my brother or try to make the best out of a shitty situation. As far as the gang went, I wouldn't make any decisions without her input. “Nothing concrete yet, but getting closer to the car to see if the fob works is out. All that'll do is let them know we're nearby."
Liv paced the small room, frowning, thinking. "We don't even know where they are or if they're together now," she pointed out. "We'll have to find a way to herd them into one area to make sure they're not in the only place we need to be."
Our biggest advantage was knowing they didn't have walkie-talkies to communicate. If they wanted to bring in more men to round us up, they couldn't radio back to base to send another crew. One of them would need to go there on foot—a half-hour walk at least. If we could keep them busy and push them in another direction while we closed in on their vehicle, we had a good chance of making it out of this alive.
"Exactly," I said. "If they're smart, they'll leave someone behind to watch the car, but two-on-one still gives us a good chance."
She stopped moving and looked at me as if something had just occurred to her. "We need to do this now before they have a chance to come up with a plan of their own.”
We were both on the same page, and I got a kick out of seeing her problem-solving skills in action. “Right, especially since that plan could be to sacrifice their own car and slash the tyres on that one, too.”
"I hadn't thought of that." Liv nibbled on her thumbnail. “How good a shot are you?” she asked.
I stared up at her from my sitting position, giving her a flat look to tell her exactly what I thought of her question. She caught onto my peeved expression and huffed out a laugh. “I’m sorry,” she said with a smile. “I bet you're a crack shot. Super impressive and a hundred percent accurate."
“That’s more like it.”
“But still...” The humour slipped from her face as she sat on the edge of the tub again. “It’s something we should keep in mind. We'll be under pressure with three bullets to protect both of us. There could be men running at us from everywhere when we make a move for the car.” Her leg shook up and down, and she regarded me for a long minute before she spoke again. “You could leave me, you know. Take off somewhere and not have to worry about this anymore. I can find my own way back home and figure out the rest from there.”
The look in her eyes made my heart pound, and I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached. I wouldn’t walk away from anyone in this situation, but the thought of leaving Liv to deal with it on her own made me sick to my stomach. I knew she’d said it out of misplaced guilt—as if we were only dealing with this because they wanted her—but those idiots wereourproblem. “You think I’m the kind of person who’d abandon a woman when she's being hunted by five men?”
Realisation dawned, and her eyes flooded with regret. “God, I didn’t mean...” She lowered her head into her hands and let out a low groan. “This is so messed up. I don't think of you in that way. I never would.” Liv rubbed her temples as if the tiredness of the day had suddenly caught up with her, and any irritation I’d been feeling toward her melted away. When her head lifted again, her eyes found mine. “Cruz… I don’t want you to leave me. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re responsible for me.”
Whenever I heard her say my name, it stirred a combination of emotions in me. The buzz of sexual attraction. Chemistry. Affection. Along with something deeper I’d probably pull apart and analyse when we weren’t trying to save our own lives. I held her gaze. “Like it or not, you’re stuck with me now... and it’s notresponsibilityI’m feeling,querida.”
Her attention dropped to my mouth then lifted to my eyes again. “What is it then?” she asked.
“I care about you,” I said, simplifying something that was too complicated to put into words, “and I protect the people I care about.”
