How the fuck did they get past the walls?
I shake myself and spring into action. “You go to the gate and warn Rhys and the others.” I shove him toward the gate. In an all-out sprint, Anthony is much faster than I am and the better choice for alerting Rhys. Although with how loud those screams are, he probably already knows that something is happening.
He stumbles and turns to me in shock. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make their jobs ten times harder,” I tell him before shoving him again. “Nowgo!”
He hesitates before nodding and racing off.
I wait for a moment, just to make sure he does as I say before running towards the screams. Caravans and trees blur by me as I push myself to go as fast as I can, my heart thumping like a drum against my chest. Adrenaline surges through my system, but the usual euphoria that follows is absent. No, I’m too busy feeling sick with dread and terror at our home being invaded.Again.
Another gunshot cracks in the distance, spurring me on. It’s followed by masculine laughter and disgusting taunts as a woman shrieks.
“Do you think she’d scream like that if I fucked her into the dirt?” a man says with a laugh.
“You want to find out? We have time,” another says. “I can hold her while you do.”
“Sure. Grab her arms.”
Oh, no you fucking don’t.
I round the corner of a caravan just in time to see two men shoving a crying woman to the ground. They’re both big men, easily outweighing her, although that doesn’t stop her from fighting back, clawing and biting at them wherever she can. She manages to slice her nails down the arm of one man, causing him to jump back and curse.
“You fucking bitch.” He pulls his arm back, intending to slap her.
I don’t hesitate.
My gun is in my hand and aimed at him before I can blink. In the next breath, he’s collapsed to the ground, a bullet in his head. The other man whirls around at the sound of the gunshot, and his eyes widen. He fumbles with his own gun—a hunting rifle—but I don’t give him a chance. The bullet rips through his throat, and he drops to the ground, gasping and gurgling on his own blood.
A sick sense of satisfaction thrums through me at the sight of his suffering, but I shove it aside to cautiously approach the woman. “Are you injured anywhere?” I ask, not bothering to ask if she’s alright because it’s clear she’s not.
No one would be after that.
“Not injured,” she says, her voice wobbling slightly. Panic still lingers in her eyes, but it appears she at least knows who I am because she doesn’t flinch when I offer her a hand. She takes it and I help her up, releasing her hand once she’s upright and doesn’t look like she’s about to keel over.
But now I have no idea what to do with her.
She can’t stay with me. I’m about to run headfirst into danger, but where can she go? The evac posts are compromised—that much is clear—but where else is safe in Haven? Her home, maybe? But that could leave her isolated…
“Go to the main building and hide. If you find anyone else along the way, tell them to go there.” It’s the safest place I can think of right now.
She nods and scrambles off without protest.
Praying that I’ve made the right choice, I turn and continue my journey towards the laughter and cries. More people are running for their lives, eyes wide with fear as they weave through the maze of caravans. They stumble to a stop when they see me, relief flooding their faces.
“Oh, thank God,” one of them sobs—an older woman—as she hurries over and clings to me like I’m the only thing keeping her grounded. “They came out of nowhere and just started waving weapons around while rounding people up.”
I rub her back in a soothing motion as I look at the other man and woman who are with her. “Do you know how many of them there are?”
“At least a dozen, if not more,” the man says with a grimace. “We arrived at our evac post late, saw what was going on and ran as soon as the screams started.”
A dozen? Shit. That’s a lot more enemies than I was hoping. I extract myself from the crying woman’s arms. “You three need to head to the main building. Tell anyone you find on the way to go there, and if you see any security members, tell them what you told me.”
I gently push the woman towards her companions, and they bundle her up in their arms.
“Be safe,” the other woman says.
I just nod and hurry away from them without a backward glance. Everything in me is screaming to get to the evac posts as soon as possible, to save as many lives as I can.
