“Well, they were wrong. Like I said, no one here called anyone about a?—”
The door to the apartment didn’t just bust open then. The entire thing was blown right off its damn hinges.
What followed took less than a handful of minutes to transpire.
Shadow screamed in surprise, her hair whipping around her head as her eyes flew to where the door used to stand tall. A black cannister she recognized instantly was thrown deep inside the apartment.
The flash bang rolled, smoke billowing up from its top as her father yelled out for her to take cover.
“Get down!” His deep voice bellowed as he bolted in her direction.
A second later, the device detonated with a blinding flash of light and a deafeningbang.
Shadow turned away on reflex as her father did the same. She looked back in time to see a man dressed all in black sucker punch her father in the face.
“Dad!”
Feeling disoriented, she tried going to him, but a set of meaty arms wrapped around her from behind.
No!
The sound of glass shattering and fists hitting flesh traveled through the ringing still present in her ears. Panic didn’t just settle in, it took over in an instant. But then Shadow remembered her training. While it was true, she wasn’t as strong or skilled as Slade and the others, her father had made sure she at least knew some basic self-defense moves.
She stomped a sneakered heel as hard as she could down onto one set of her attacker’s booted toes. Thankfully, they weren’t protected with steel, and the guy behind her cried out in pain.
His hold on her loosened, and she took full advantage, bringing both of her arms up in one quick move. The strategy worked, lifting the man’s arms enough to give her room to slip her body free from his grasp. Shadow spun around, kicked the man in the gut, inwardly smiling when he lost his footing and fell back on his ass.
She turned to see her father engaged in a serious battle of hand-to-hand combat. A gun went flying out of his assailant’s hand, sliding across the tiled floor not far from where she stood.
Having stupidly left her own pistol on the nightstand upstairs, Shadow raced for the deadly weapon that had come to a rest a few feet away.
She bent down, her fingers touching the gun’s cool metal. But just as she started to curl her fingers around it, the same boot she’d stomped on kicked the pistol free from her hand.
“Ah!” Shadow cried out when she felt the cracking of bone.
Pain exploded as her pinky finger was forced into an unnatural angle. The nauseating burn radiated up into her hand and wrist, and beyond.
Son of a?—
The man in black swung his foot toward her midsection next, his boot slamming into her stomach and ribs with such force, she flew over and onto her back.
“Alice!” her father called out her name.
She coughed and gasped, fire igniting in her ribs as her lungs tried and failed to find air. Shadow tried her best to ignore the pain. To roll over onto her side and push herself up to her feet.
But just as she thought she might actually succeed, that same boot landed a vicious blow to the side of her head.
She fell back, her already injured head bouncing off the room’s unforgiving tile. Her mouth became filled with the metallic taste of blood.
With a barely conscious groan, Shadow turned her head and spit out as much of her own blood as she could. It was only then that she realized she hadn’t heard her father say anything more.
Her blurred gaze looked over to where he lay on the floor. His eyes were closed, and he was no longer moving.
At first, she feared the worst had happened, and he was dead. But then she saw the man next to him stand up with an empty syringe grasped tightly in his hand.
Oh, God!
Shadow felt a sharp sting, and she immediately knew what had happened. The asshole she’d been fighting had just injected her with the same drug they’d given her dad.
