“No!” Glaring at him, I stepped closer. “You say I’m your family, that you couldn’t save us? You can. You can save me. You can open those gates and let me go.”
He stared at me through one bloodshot eye, the other so swollen it could barely open. “Mike!” he shouted hoarsely. Seconds later, a scrawny young guard was standing at his side, eyeing the both of us.
“Gimme your keys, Adler,” Jeffers said, gesturing with his hand. “Mike’s going to go get your truck. He’s going to grab you two scavenger supply packs, then drive it to the main gates. Then he’s going to tell the boys there that you’re free to leave.”
“What about her?” I jerked my chin to where Jonah was bent over Autumn.
Jeffers responded with an almost imperceptible nod. “Her too.”
I wanted to trust him; hell, I’d trusted him for most of my life. But that was then and this was now, and now the past was buried beneath a pile of bodies too deep to dig through to find the men we used to be.
“Why?” I countered. “Why would you just let us go?”
Jeffers’s lips twitched. “When have I ever been able to stop you from doing anything you had your mind set on?” When I didn’t respond, he let out a heavy sigh. “As far as Purgatory’s concerned, she’s paid for her crimes. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re both liabilities now, and can’t be trusted. I can either kill you or let you go. I’m letting you go.”
“No, no!” Liv shouted as she pushed through the guards. “You can’t do that!”
“Shut up,” he spat, only pausing to spare her a quick glance.
Jonah appeared on my right. “She wasn’t bitten,” he said quietly, giving me a tight smile and a nod. “And I’ve cleaned her wounds, but she’s suffering from shock.”
Shock was fine. Shock I could deal with, even fix. I couldn’t fix a bite.
Yanking my keys free from my jeans, I slapped them in Mike’s waiting hand. As he hurried off, I turned and headed back into the cage to find her curled up on her side again, her watery eyes staring at nothing.
“We’re leaving,” I muttered, and bent down to scoop her up in my arms. “I don’t know where the fuck we’re going, and we’re probably going to die tomorrow, but fuck it, I’m getting you out of here.”
Her response was to press her face into my chest above my bicep and fist her hand in the back of my shirt. It was more of a response than I’d expected, and I took it as a damn good sign. Holding tightly to her, I stepped out of the cage, and the crowd roared their protests.
Jeffers turned to the crowd, his hands raised in the air. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he bellowed, “She wasn’t bitten!”
Somewhere to our left, the same statement was shouted through a megaphone, and the crowd roared their disappointment.
“Like hell she wasn’t!” The angry shout came from Liv, who’d stepped away from Jeffers and closer to the gathering of guards. “I saw her!” she screamed, her eyes wild. “She was bitten!” Whipping around, she wrenched a gun from the hands of the guard closest to her.
The gun discharged and I ducked and turned, trying to shield Autumn with my body.
“No!” Jeffers shouted as the second explosion rattled through the air.
“No!” Liv screamed. “No! Get off me!”
Looking back, I found Liv buried at the bottom of a pile of guards, the gun wrestled from her grip. Then I looked at Jeffers and time seemed to slow down; everything and everyone was suddenly moving in slow motion as I stared in horror.
Holding his side, his eyes on me, Jeffers staggered backward drunkenly. A red stain grew beneath his palm as I watched, and spread across his midsection.
Time sped up again as my thoughts coalesced. I needed to get Autumn out of here, far away from here, far away from Liv and Jeffers before all hell broke loose.
“Fucking go,” Jeffers growled at me. Gripping the bars of the cage, he glanced down at the blood seeping through his shirt and swallowed hard. “I’ll deal with it. Just go.”
The crowd was shouting. Some were running while other surged forward, their anger and panic hanging thick and heavy in the air. I stared at Jeffers for several long seconds, wanting to say more, wanting to say something ...
But there was nothing left to say.
With Autumn still in my arms, I pushed past a stunned Jonah, past Jeffers, and ran into the crowd. It was utter chaos. With everyone pushing and shoving one another, and running in different directions, no one paid us any attention.
I ran fast and hard, breathing in quick erratic spurts as I pumped my legs as fast as they could go. There wasn’t time; there wasn’t any more fucking time. I needed to get to the gates before word of what happened spread to the guards there, and the entire place locked down.
Spotting my truck coming slowly around the bend that led to the lot, I slowed down, trying to appear calm as I approached the main entrance. It didn’t matter. Once they’d caught sight of us, all of the men stationed there pointed their weapons directly at me.
