The guard’s words abruptly end, followed by a thump as his body hits the floor. “Give me a hand,” Malcolm murmurs in my earpiece, and Rex moves to help him drag the body behind the desk, dumping it there to hide from anyone that’s crawling around in here.
The guys working their way up the peak have taken out anyone they can outside; we need to deal with the rest.
When Malcolm reaches back up to his full height, his face is cast in shadow, and his mannerisms mirror his son’s. “Dawsontake the second floor; Rex takes the top. We’ll get more bodies in once the rest make their way up and block the roads.”
I look over at Regina, not able to see her face properly, but she gives me a nod, following Dawson down the hall. My heart tightens.
He better look after her, or else he’ll be added to my list.
“What are you gonna do?” Rex asks Malcolm, who’s swapped his handgun out for something a lot bigger, letting it rest on the desk.
“I’m going to break into their system and disarm it. If he’s held in a cell, I should be able to unlock it. Then we rig the place.” He says it without an ounce of fear, like sitting here alone doesn’t send a chill down his spine like the thought does mine.
Rex takes my arm, guiding me in the opposite direction Regina and Dawson went. We reach a set of doors, the green fire exit sign above indicating it’s a stairwell. A pair of hands fall on my shoulder as Rex twists me to face him. “I might not be Saint, but please, for the love of God, Indie. Listen to what I tell you.”
I bite down on my cheek as he opens the door, aiming his gun for me to go through. “Do I have a reputation for not listening or something?”
Saint said the exact same words to me entering the manor. It pissed me off then; it feels even worse now.
He huffs a laugh, angling his head to urge me forward. “Well, I told you not to tell him I gave you a hand during training, and he in return handed my ass to me. Who the fuck knows what he’ll do if you get shot under my care. So please, help me, help you.”
I roll my eyes as we make our way up the stairway. Each step has my heart thumping in my chest. My ears prick back as gunfire cracks in the distance. Rex’s hand flies against my chest, slamming me backwards into the wall as we hide in the shadows.
My breathing grows rapid as I listen to it, multiple bullets cracking through the air as the two of us stand there. “The fuck is going on, Dawson?” Rex grits through his teeth, and my heart pounds with each shot, waiting on their response. My mind instantly goes to a worst-case scenario, but it’s Regina who answers.
“There’s a bunch of them here. Oh shit! Fucking asshole nearly shot me!”
“Stand behind that fucking wall, and don’t close your eyes when you shoot!” Dawson bites back.
Christ.
Rex lets out a sigh, pinching his nose between his fingers whilst they bicker, guns crackling through the static. “I’m never doing this with amateurs again.”
I jab my elbow into his side. “Give her a break, Rambo. She’s never shot at someone before.”
“Thank you,Indie,” Regina answers through the bullets, and I huff the most baffled laugh as she hears me through the connection.
The brief moment of what we’d class as our new normality shatters; the door above us flies open and someone comes rushing down the stairs.
Rex swiftly sends a bullet right into the guard’s head, his body dropping with a sickening thump as he drops like a bag of sand down the rest of the stairs. “We better move,” he says to me, and I follow him as I step over the dead body, gripping my gun and holding it out in front of me.
Just as Rex reaches out for the door, another guard flies through that ends up with two shots in him from me.
“I got the better end of the deal it seems,” Rex jokes as he peeks through the corridor.
I don’t laugh this time. The brief shade of lighter feelings in me have vanished, that buzz coming alive under my skin when the first kill of the day spikes the heat in my body.
And I’m hungry for more.
We move through the corridors of the top floor, and my pulse roars to life. He’s on this level, I just know he is. It’s like my heart is being tugged towards him.
The white tiles on the walls are bleached red with the light’s glow. The doors that stretch at either side of us are like cages. Metal with the centre replaced by mesh, it looks like a prison rather than a research facility.
Rex’s head swings at either side of the long corridors. “We should really split up, but—”
“Good with me,” I answer, ready to charge down until he grips my hoodie and tugs me backwards.
“I said fuckingbut, Indie!”
