Julia hissed at me. “She’s petrified, just give her a second.”
I shook my head. “I don’t have a second to give. It’s now or never.”
“Now that I have you, come with us. Come home with me,” Julia said, pleading with her sister.
And as I looked over the girl’s shoulder at Theresa, her gaze locked with mine as she nodded her head.
“What’s our next move?” she asked.
“Well, well, well,” a voice behind me said, “I have to say, I honestly don’t know how you and your little band of misfits are so resourceful. And you know my boss is going to want an answer so, tell me: how are you so resourceful?”
The cocking of guns turned me around and I found two more men pointing them at my face. A mistake neither of them would live through. I slowly held up the knife I had stolen off one of the men, and a grin slithered across my face as my shirt raised up enough to expose the gun I had stolen that I had tucked away in the back band of my jeans. And I hoped to God that one of the girls was brave enough to reach for it when the time was right.
Because I backed toward them the second those two men approached us.
“I hope you’ve had your fun,” the one on the left said, “because it ends now.”
I smirked. “Are you sure about that?”
The guys both looked at one another before the one on the right spoke. “Yeah, we’re sure.”
Them taking their eyes off us was the only entrance I needed, though. Just a split second where they weren’t staring us down. I lunged as quickly as I could at the man on the left, plunging the knife into his neck as blood spurted everywhere. His body dropped limply in midair, the knife still protruding from his neck, and as the other man finally stilled his gun at my head, I used his buddy’s body to block my own.
Before holding his dead friend’s hand up, aiming the gun right at him.
“Oh, my God!” Theresa exclaimed.
“Fangs?” Julia said hesitantly. “Maybe you don’t have to kill him this time. Just—just put him in a room somewhere. Yeah?”
I tilted my head. “Over my dead body.”
With every bullet I popped off, the girls screamed louder. I hated that sound, too. It was full of fear, anguish, and hopelessness. All brought on by me. And after unloading the entire magazine into that useless motherfucker, I dropped his friend’s body to the floor with a crunch.
Before I searched their pockets.
“What the hell are you doing!?” Theresa squeaked.
I growled. “Searching for weapons and ammo. We still have to get out of here, remember? Or are you guys too focused on me killing the men that were going to kill us?”
I didn’t have time to wait for them to respond, however. As more footsteps volleyed overhead, thunder crashed down so hard that it seemed to shake the foundation of the floor we stood upon. And as my fingertips brushed something metallic, I yanked the object quickly out of the dead man’s pocket.
Only to find that it was a set of keys.
“Oh, hell yeah,” I said as I turned to face the girls. “Come on, we’ve got our way out of here.”
“You said he was good,” Theresa choked out as she clung to her sister.
Julia stared me down with fire in her gaze. “I said we could trust him, not that he was good.”
I tried not to focus on how much her words stung. “Let’s get out of here.”
But when Theresa took a step forward, she groaned. “Hold on a second.”
Julia gasped. “What? What is it? What hurts?”
I watched how she held her side gingerly. “Are your ribs broken?”
Theresa quickly shook her head. “No, they’re not.”
