However, after we cleared all of the rooms on the upper level, we stood just outside the cracked door that had light filtering into the dusty hallway.
And I watched as West pulled a canister that looked like a grenade out of his pocket.
Stone got on the floor and peeked beneath the door’s floor crack before he whispered. “I’ve got five sets of grown feet and one small pair dangling. I think she’s sitting in a chair.”
My heart lurched into my throat. “Where the hell did you get that smoke bomb, West?”
He smirked. “Made it myself. It’ll knock them out.”
Puck paused. “What about Chloe? Will she get sick?”
West shook his head. “She’ll just get knocked out, too.”
And that’s when they all looked at me.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” I whispered. “Do it.”
“Did someone hear that?” a deep voice asked.
“Help! Someone help me!” Chloe shrieked.
West pulled the pin out before I stood and kicked the door open with my foot, and as he threw it into the room the cartel goons drew their weapons.
“Get away!” West roared.
Within milliseconds, the canister exploded while a woman’s screams filled the hallway. Smoke filled the room before people started coughing and I heard Chloe’s outcries grow tired and weary.
“Someone! Help me! Please…!”
It broke my heart to hear her like that, but the second the cartel goons started dropping I crossed through the smoke. I held my jacket over my head and gripped the back of the rolling chair she had been tied to and I rolled her out into the hallway.
And as her head drooped forward, a voice I didn’t expect to hear yelled down the hallway.
“Chloe! I’m here!” Lexi exclaimed.
While Texas rushed up behind her with a worried look on his face. “Get down! Everyone, get down!”
We all hit the deck as Texas started shooting behind us. Lexi dove for the rolling chair Natty was in and started backtracking with her, pulling her down the hallway at neck-breaking speed. I stood to my feet and watched as a straggling cartel asshole came around the corner with his gun aimed right at Lexi’s fucking forehead.
And as I aimed down the sights of my gun, Lexi threw herself onto her best friend as I plugged the man with a singular bullet between his eyes.
“Stupid fuck,” I growled.
“Jesus Christ, Lexi,” Chloe said groggily.
Lexi was quick to untie the knots around her wrists and ankles. “I gotcha. You’re safe, Chlo. Let’s get you out of here.”
And as Lexi rose up with her best friend’s arm tossed haphazardly around her shoulders, tears rushed her eyes as she nodded her head.
Before Texas quickly escorted her back into the stairwell.
Twenty-Four
Lexi
I raced with Chloe leaning against my body and I took the stairs as quickly as possible. Bullets continued to ring out as tears streaked my cheeks, but I sure as hell wasn’t about to let up. Though, I was worried about Chloe. She was lethargic, and her words were slurred. She was also limping on one of her ankles, though I couldn’t tell which one. The bloody nose she had burned me to my core, and I hoped that whoever had laid hands on her got slaughtered by one of the men covering us while we tried to get out of the building.
But, as I followed behind the behemoth man guiding us down the stairs, I couldn’t help but register the sheer amount of gunfire raining down around us.
