The bearded, tattooed hulk in the middle glared at me with death in his eyes.
It had to be Jackson.Liv’s biggest fan. His attention shifted to the dead man at my feet, and if anything his expression darkened.
The guy on the right wouldn't be too difficult to take out in hand-to-hand combat, but if I ran out of bullets and it got physical with Jackson, he looked like a tank could mow him down and he’d get straight back up again. “That was a warning shot,” I called out. “Back the fuck up.” I threw a glance over my shoulder. Liv was still on the ground. “How are we doing?”
“Just out of reach. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.”
The redhead stayed down and kept pressure on his shattered knee. The man with the greying hair slowed his steps until he was barely moving, his expression unsure. I’d just become an unknown threat. Had I used my last bullet? Did I have a full mag? Only Jackson didn’t seem to care. He kept coming at me, walking now instead of running, his features hard, his focus on me.
The dead were closing in on them from behind, coming at them from all directions, but they were too caught up in what we were doing to notice.
“Update?” I asked Liv, staring straight ahead.
“I’ve got it,” she said, her words breathless. “God,I've got it. I’ll climb through to the passenger side.”
I kept my attention on Jackson as the door opened behind me. If I didn’t shoot this asshole now, my urge to spare a human life would come back to bite me. I'd seen his type before; he wouldn't let it go. Whether it was tomorrow or a week from now, I’d have to deal with him again. So, while he ignored my warning and strode toward me like the goddamn Terminator, I fired off my final round straight into his left pec.
Part of me expected him to shake it off and keep going, he lookedthatdetermined, but his mouth opened in surprise—almost as if he’d expected to keep moving, too—and he dropped to his knees.
He stared at me while his heart pumped its final beats. As he smacked face-first into the bitumen, the engine fired up behind me and death metal blasted from the car. Relief rushed through me, and I tore off my backpack, leaning inside to feed it through to the backseat. Liv was still scrambling across to the passenger side when I jumped in and slammed the door.
She immediately shut the music down so we could think, and before we took off, I threw a last glance at the redhead on the ground. He locked eyes with me and screamed, "Fucker," as I jammed the car in reverse. He was too focused on our escape to catch onto the group of a dozen or more corpses surrounding him and his still-breathing friend.
The tyres screeched as I backed up from the stationary vehicles blocking our exit. I shoved the car into drive and launched forward. We took off with no mechanical issues, and I rounded the outer edge of the congestion, moving faster now we were in a fully functioning car. My stomach clenched as I mounted the curb, and I travelled along the footpath until it cleared up enough to get back on the road. All the while I kept looking out for obstacles to make sure we didn't damage this car, too.
My gaze swept everywhere, my senses on edge, and when I glanced across at Liv, she appeared to be barely hanging in there. She leaned forward with her backpack still on, checking the side mirror, over her shoulder, making soft wheezing noises as she breathed her way through it. The drops of blood on her face were drying. Her pupils were dilated, her eyes wide. The tightness in my own body didn’t ease until we were on the highway heading out of the city.
We'd made it—but we still had a long way to go.
"You doing okay over there?” I asked, shooting her a glance.
She struggled out of her backpack in the cramped space and shoved it through to the rear with mine. Without the bulk behind her anymore, she pulled on her seatbelt and clicked it into place. “Yes.”
Her answer came too quickly, her tone too sharp. I needed to get her somewhere safe a half hour from here at least—more if she could hold it together long enough. We both needed to stop and breathe.
We'd left burning buildings and dead bodies behind us.
She’d stabbed two people.
She’d watched me push a man down the stairs and shoot three others—two of them dying right in front of her. We’d been in a war zone, and for someone who’d spent the past couple of years hiding or running from danger, Liv had been thrown into the worst of it without warning.
I didn’t need to ask to know she’d never been exposed to that kind of violence before.
“We’ll stop soon,” I assured her, keeping my eyes ahead. There were corpses to dodge, rubbish and debris scattered across the road. We couldn't risk crashing after everything we'd been through to get the car.
When we stopped today, I wanted to be in a secure house with her andstaystopped until we took off again tomorrow morning.
And all I could do was hope that she wouldn’t look at me differently now after what she'd seen today.
I'd killed people, but I’d done it for her, for me—and because sometimes when your back was against the wall, the only way out was lethal force.
Fourteen
Liv
Almost an hour after leaving the city, I still couldn’t draw a breath without feeling an ache in my chest.
Other than one-word answers here and there whenever Cruz tried to initiate a conversation with me, I hadn’t spoken. Not because I was angry with him or irritated or because I wanted to punish him in any way. It was just shock, pure and simple—but he didn't know that. He'd sent me enough worried glances throughout the trip that he must have thought I was on the verge of a breakdown.
