“So, I should be worried. Got it. Should I do anything else after I pass out?”
“Act as sick as possible. I’ll handle the rest. Now, go. Get yourself a shard of glass, and then hit the deck.”
I took a small step away from him. “Are you sure this is going to work? Because I don’t think—”
He pushed me softly toward the glass on the floor in the room where they’d had me tied up. “It has to work, we don’t have any other choice. No one knows to come looking for us, so we’re on our own. Now, go. I’m serious. Stop asking all those fucking questions and just do what I’m telling you.”
I swallowed down the other questions I had and scooped up the second-largest shard of glass I could find. I thought about sliding it into the hem of my jeans, but I opted to put it in my sock instead. Less risk for major punctures and if I was on my side after “fainting,” I could get to it easier than something behind my back.
And after I tucked it away, I nodded toward West before I rolled my eyes into the back of my head.
Then, I collapsed my legs.
“Chloe! No!” West exclaimed.
He rushed to me and scooped me into his arms. “Chloe, wake up. Somebody help me, please!”
The front door slammed open before heavy footsteps fell quickly toward us.
“What the fuck are you yelling about?” a man asked.
West panicked over me. “She’s—she’s out cold. I can’t—Chloe, wake the fuck up!”
He shook my body softly and I kept my eyes closed and my body as limp as possible. I just prayed to any God that might’ve had mercy on us at that moment that it worked.
That whatever West’s plan was worked in our favor.
“Hey!” the man roared next to my ear.
It took all I had not to flinch before West pulled me close against him. “She needs help. We need to get her to a hospital!”
A couple of men laughed in the distance while the other one who checked on me scoffed. “Yeah, not happening. Call me when she wakes up.”
West laid my body on the ground and hissed at the man, standing to his feet. “You want to tell your boss that the woman he’s keeping for high-paying clients passed out on your watch and you didn’t do anything to help her out? How the fuck do you think that’s going to roll over with him? You think he’s going to be happy if she chokes on her own vomit or something and dies?”
I had no idea what the hell the guard looked like at that moment, but I would’ve given anything to have seen his face. The entire world seemed to fall silent at West’s accusation, and as I laid there—trying to stay in my trance— someone kneeled down to me.
“I’m going to check her pulse,” the man said.
I let out all of the breath in my lungs and waited until they cried out for mercy. It forced my pulse up, my heart pounding in my chest. Slowly, I let air in, just as the man’s fingers touched down against my neck.
And the second he felt my heartbeat raging out of control, he leapt back up. “Her pulse is high,amigos! She needs a doc—what the fuck?!”
Everything happened so quickly that I almost didn’t register anything. One minute, the man was checking my pulse, and the next minute West growled at him to get off me. A gunshot popped off and the man cried out before a door burst open somewhere, and as I curled up into a ball, I did my best not to scream as I reached for the glass shard against my ankle.
“And you,” West grumbled, “and you. And you, you, you, and you.”
Every time he said the word “you”, a gunshot popped off. I managed to open my eyes and saw a pair of lifeless ones looking back at me and I shrieked. I couldn’t help it. I scrambled to my feet and held the shard of glass over my head. It threatened to slice my hand open the harder I gripped it, but I didn’t even care. Heavy footfalls sounded before there were even heavier thuds against the floor. I watched in horror as West reloaded the gun he had gotten from…somewhere.
It wasn’t until I looked down at the dead man at my feet that I realized his gun holster was empty.
Take one for yourself. You need it.
My eyes darted around before I found another body close to me. I dropped the glass and scrambled to the man’s side before I slid both guns out of the holsters on his hips. I grimaced as I checked his pockets, finding two sleeves—magazines?—of ammunition that I assumed went to both of the guns I held in my hand.
Before West snatched one from my grasp.
“Come on, we need to gather up all we can before another wave of them comes,” he said quickly.
