I snort. “Calm down, Lord Farquaad. You’re forgetting an important piece of the puzzle.”
“And what’s that?” he asks, full of confidence.
“You have to make a getaway, and that means you have to get me out of the building to protect yourself. I’m assuming that’s your plan. There’s no way you could walk out of here alive otherwise.”
“You’re not as daft as everyone thinks you are, after all.”
I just shrug. He can try and make digs – or are they backhanded compliments? – at me to make me turn on my brothers, but it won’t happen.
“Let’s get going then, gramps, we have evil plans to carry out and shit.”
We both step out of the building and it seems as if a lot of men are retreating and backing off. I guess they’re no match against the hundred plus Order members we have here today. Using the younger members as fake students was a good idea, but I think bringing in more men under the guise of parents in the crowd was a genius idea on my part.
Casualties are being taken into the main building and through to the nurses’ office, I’m presuming.
Harold is behind me as we walk, a gun clearly pressed against the back of my skull as he watches his surroundings. I lock eyes with my mother who is pressed against the ground with a sniper rifle. I smile; my mum is a bad bitch. Like, she will fuck you up and they will never find your body, levels of bad.
“Will you quit dancing around like you have ants in your pants?!” My grandfather snaps.
“Itching powder actually. My cock is red raw from scratching. It might be bleeding a little.” I need to keep him distracted, so he doesn’t see what’s about to happen. He presses up against my back; he must be on edge with all my talking. I see my mum wink at me and my eyes go wide, how the fuck does she have a good shot? Being this close, everything happens so fast and Sawyer appears out of nowhere like a damn magician. I drop to the ground and pat down my body. Everything is still intact.
Chapter Forty-Three
Slate
Amelie is nowhere to be seen. We’ve searched the entire back lawns and we have a team in the trees scouring for her, everyone is trying to make sure she hasn’t been found or taken off of school property, but I’m starting to get worried. No one has seen her.
Frost comes racing up to me.
“We have an issue. Somehow the vehicles that breached the perimeter with Harold's men scrambled the signals, so we have no way of knowing if she’s been taken out that way. I have my men securing them again now so that if anyone exits once it’s back up, we’ll know.”
“Thanks, Frost. Keep us informed.”
We part ways. I saw Kalen go into the back building not that long ago and he hasn’t come back out, so I can head that way in my search for Amelie and hopefully kill two birds with one stone.
Think, Slate, where the hell would Amelie go?She’d want to make sure that her family is safe, us too. So why the fuck haven’twe seen her yet? Unless she was injured, she would find a place to hide.
Adrianne rushes towards me, blood pouring from her nose. “Fuck! Someone sucker punched me in the damn nose! Has anyone found her yet?”
I shake my head no. “Why are you still here? You were supposed to leave the second anything went down. You need to think about your brother.”
“He’s safe. Frost has his daughter watching her at the new safe house.”
“That isn’t the point. You can’t die,” I insist.
“This is what I signed up for, so that he can have the best damn life possible. So if that means I have to die for that to happen, then I will. I know he’d be looked after, and I owe all that to Amelie.”
“You owe it to Kalen, actually.”
She sneers at me through blood filled teeth.
“Go and get that nose looked at and then go.”
She begrudgingly agrees, leaving me to my search.
The first door inside the building is locked. I kick at it, but the damn thing doesn’t budge. I really don't want to draw attention to myself too much right now, but I use my gun to smash the small glass window anyway, moving the blinds out of the way and opening the door.
Blood doesn’t bother me. After a while it’s something you just deal with. The smell is the same if it’s fresh.
