No no no no no!
Horror took root in me as my entire world fell to pieces.
I stared and stared, my ears buzzing, my skull pounding as I tried to deny the truth right before me. Blood was pooling out around him, soaking into my jeans. It was on my hands, red, so vividly, horribly red.
I didn’t even realise I was screaming until someone slid a strong hand around my neck and the noise was crushed to silence in my throat. Mortez hauled me to my feet, wheeling his gun around and pressing the smoking hot barrel of it to my temple.
Tears flooded down my cheeks and my heart fell to dust. The only thing that existed inside me was pain. I couldn’t fight, I was done, shattered, destroyed. I’d lost the dearest, most precious person to me in all the world. The man who’d held me in his arms a thousand times, who’d loved me with every inch of his heart, who had kissed my wounds better, carried me on his shoulders, taken my hand whenever we’d crossed the road.
Death hung so heavily in the air it made me want to wretch and scream and cry all at once. But all I could do was stare at Dad’s lifeless eyes, his parted lips and the stillness of his body which had once seemed invincible to me. All the preciousness of my childhood was wrapped in that man, the heat of a thousand burning suns had blazed through his love for me, for Jess. And now he was hollow, the man he’d been carved out from his skin and taken so brutally, irreversibly away from me.
Gone, he’s gone.
Monroe snapped the neck of the guy he was fighting with a bellow of rage and the man fell dead at his feet before his eyes sought me out. He was shaking, blood peppering his flesh and he looked like a beast who’d crawled out of hell, ready to rip apart the world to get me back. But I was already lost.
My right hand tingled from the repetitive recoil of the pistol in my grip while the knife in my left hand steadily dripped blood on the ground by my feet as I looked around us at the men we’d slaughtered.
If there had ever been any doubt about the monsters which lay beneath our flesh then this act alone was enough to cast that to ruin. Right here and now we wore no masks, only our raw and brutal souls on show for the whole world to see. And there was something beautifully powerful in that.
Blood was splattered over my clothes, my skin, my shoes, the scent of it so thick I could taste it on the air.
Blake was similarly painted in splotches of red as he spat a curse at the asshole he’d just put down, swiping an arm over his face as he smeared the blood and sweat staining his skin.
Kyan was kneeling over the last fucker, beating him with a desperate kind of savagery which could only end in death.
“That’s all of them,” I barked, my gaze turning to the cabin where our girl still hadn’t emerged.
Kyan’s head whipped up at my words and he stood, bloody as a butcher in a slaughterhouse as he snatched his baseball bat from the ground beside him.
A motherfucking growl escaped his throat and he stalked to the front of our group as we all headed for the door with a single goal in mind.
But before we could reach it, the door opened and Monroe stepped out, shirtless and bloody, furious, fearful eyes slipping to us as he held up a hand to halt us.
“Back up,” he commanded and something about the raw tone of his voice made us fall still.
“What is it?” I demanded, stepping to Kyan’s side as Blake raised his gun again on my left.
Monroe descended the front steps quickly, stopping beside Kyan and looking back up at the cabin just as a voice called out to us.
“If I’d known the little lady kept a pack of wild dogs this close, I woulda brought more men,” he said with a dark laugh. “But lucky for me, I still managed to get the upper hand. Lower your weapons unless you wanna find out what the inside of her skull looks like up close.”
I cut a look at Monroe and the tension in his muscles confirmed my fears even before the smug asshole stepped out with Tatum clutched to his chest and a gun pressed firmly to her temple.
Her big eyes were wet with tears and mascara tracks marked her cheeks alongside the blood.
I barely spared a glance for the thug holding her, his hand around her neck. Just a single, cursory look to memorise every detail about his face so that I’d know it in a crowd of a thousand if he managed to walk away from this alive. Because his hands were on my girl. His fingers digging into her throat, a gun pressed to her head. Which meant he’d already given me his life. I’d kill him in a hundred different ways for any one of those crimes, but that hollow, terrified look in her beautiful eyes was enough for me to vow that it would be an agonising demise.
“This is a bit awkward. Did y’all realise she had so many boyfriends or is this the revelation of her promiscuity I’m witnessing?” he asked, his mouth brushing Tatum’s ear as he spoke and his grip on her throat tightening as she tried to recoil. “Though I will admit, a hot piece of ass like this might be worth fighting for if she fucks as hot as she looks.”
“I’m going to cut you open and strangle you with your own intestines,” Kyan snarled, every inch of his furious attention riveted on the man before us. “And while you’re choking and convulsing beneath me, I’ll cut your fucking dick off and ram it down your throat for good measure.”
There was something fucking terrifying in the way he promised that and the thug hesitated for a single moment like he knew it too. Because it wasn’t some empty threat, it was a promise from the devil himself and everyone in that clearing knew Kyan fully intended to follow through on it.
“No need to get antsy, boys,” he said, almost pleasantly, like he couldn’t see his death staring back at him as he looked at us, but the tightness in his grip on our girl proved that was a lie.
“Just let her go, Mortez,” Monroe growled and I committed that name to memory alongside his face.
He had the fucking audacity to laugh in response, his finger twitching on the trigger of his pistol in a way that made my heart leap with panic and I took half a step forward before I could stop myself. Blake caught my arm with the hand which wasn’t aiming a gun at that motherfucker’s head and I forced myself to stop again.
“What are you going to do with her?” I demanded and the way Mortez assessed me told me he knew exactly what I was. The darkest creatures always recognised their own kind after all.
“She’s my escape plan, that’s all. I did what I came here to do, her daddy is dead and there are no more loose ends for me to worry about tying off. Y’all just need to back the fuck up and let me leave. I’ll take her with me to make sure you don’t get any ideas about following and then let her out a mile or so down the road.”
“No fucking way,” Blake snapped.
The tension in my limbs was unbearable as this situation spiralled completely and utterly out of my control. There was a fury in me unlike anything I’d ever felt before as my gaze locked with Tatum’s and I swear I could feel her pain at the death of her father. It hurt me in a way that no emotion of my own ever could. She was ours. We’d sworn to protect her. I’d sworn to look after her. And yet now she’d been cut so deeply, I knew the wound would never heal right.
It’s my fault.
All my fault.
All my fucking fault!
“I want the keys to that car over there,” Mortez commanded and I cut a glance to the heap of shit Monroe usually drove. It was the only car parked on the track which led here, though there was an old motorbike parked alongside it too. I guessed Mortez and his band of dead men had come here on foot like us to keep their presence hidden until they sprung their trap.
Monroe hesitated and Mortez suddenly moved his pistol from Tatum’s temple to jab it into her stomach.
“A gut wound can take days to kill you,” he said in a low tone. “So I’ll still have my hostage, but you’ll have the added worry about taking her to a hospital. And in these wild and uncertain times, hospitals are not the safest places to be. Especially with that virus doing the rounds.”
“You’d be wise to kill me while you hav
e the chance,” Tatum hissed in a low voice. “Because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your miserable days running from me and wishing you had.”
“Aww, don’t be sore about your daddy, sweetheart,” Mortez cooed, his mouth pressed to the skin of her neck as he spoke while still shielding himself with her body.
Tatum was rigid in his arms, her face scrunched with disgust as she was held against him and my blood boiled.
“We’ll never let him take you,” I swore to her as my gaze stayed fixed on her big blue eyes as they darted between the four of us like she didn’t know where best to seek solace.
“Like I said, one mile and I’ll cut her loose. Last chance to hand over the keys before I put a bullet in her belly. Give them to the girl.”
“Here,” Monroe snarled, tossing the key to Tatum and she caught it mechanically.
“Good boys,” Mortez said, his tone patronising and his eyes wary as he backed up. He was marking each of us as clearly as I’d marked him. We were hunters pitted against each other now. And this feud between us would only end in death, whether that would be today or not was the only real thing in question here.
Tatum stumbled a little as he dragged her backwards towards the car and the anger in me made my limbs fucking tremble as we stalked after them like a wolf pack, the tension in the air so thick we were drowning in it.
“Just take the car and go,” I growled. “Leave her here now. We have no way to follow anyway.”
Not that that would fucking stop me from obliterating this son of a bitch.
“Lower your weapons and I might,” Mortez offered.
I knew it was a fucking lie, but I couldn’t just let him take her without trying to reason with him.
All of us lowered our guns as he made it to the car and he dropped down behind the wheel.
My heart thrashed as he yanked Tatum onto his lap and started the engine. All four of us lurched forwards as he threw the car into gear, but it was no use, the wheels spun in the dirt for half a second and he shoved our girl across into the passenger seat. But that was his fucking mistake.
With a roar of rage, I raced after the car, lifting my gun and firing at him, aiming for his side of the vehicle and forcing him to swerve as the rear windshield shattered.
He started shooting back, but I only ran faster as I took aim again. The pounding of footsteps around me told me the other Night Keepers were at my heels, running with me as we chased after her.
And as my muscles burned and my heart raced, I knew I wasn’t going to stop. I wouldn’t turn back or slow no matter how fucking far I had to run. He wouldn’t take our girl away from us. I wouldn’t let her fall into the hands of that monster. Because she already had her monsters and none of us were anything without her. If the last few months had taught me anything at all then it was that.
Tatum Rivers had come crashing into my life like a tornado set to ruffle my feathers beyond recognition. And every time I got caught in her path, I found that I knew myself a little less and a little more than I had before. I refused to give up on her. I refused to give in.
She was mine and I was hers and even the world falling to ruin around us couldn’t stop me from claiming her now.
I gasped for breath as I panicked.
Everything was falling apart.
My whole world was shattering piece by piece.
And this man was responsible for it.
It was his fault my father had been hunted by the police, his fault his name had been dragged through the mud and his fault he was dead.
I turned to look out the broken rear window, my heart fracturing as the Night Keepers took chase. Saint was out ahead, his arms powering back and forth, his breath swirling up around him in a fog as he ran.
“Saint!” I screamed and Mortez laughed, lowering his window and hitting the brakes.
“Let’s see how fast you can run from a bullet, little bastard,” he muttered.
“Leave him alone,” I snarled, burning hot raging coursing through my blood.
The second he took his eyes off of me I lunged at him, scratching and tearing at him as I fought to get his gun. Saint was gaining on the car and Mortez cursed as he shoved me back, opening fire out of the window.
“No!” I screamed, panic slicing my heart to ribbons as I grabbed hold of his arm and pulled with all my might as he fired again, my eyes on Saint. His shoulder jerked back as the bullet grazed him and I went crazy trying to stop Mortez from shooting again.
“You already have me – let him go! Stop it you fucking psycho!” I demanded, my throat raw, terror swallowing me up and devouring me.
“You sit down in your fucking seat!” Mortez barked as he shoved me into it so hard that my head knocked against the passenger window. He threw the car into reverse and accelerated towards Saint at high speed.
I started screaming, forgetting any care for myself as I tried to grab the wheel and stop this from happening. Mortez slammed the butt of the gun into my forehead and I fell back in agony, dizzy as I looked out the back of the car again. Saint tried to leap off of the path but it was too late. The car was too close. It reversed into him full force, sending him flying over the roof and a scream tore from my throat.
The sound of his body tumbling across the metal overhead made me sick and I flinched violently as he hit the hood before me then fell onto the ground in front of the car.
“Saint!” Kyan and Blake were shouting, closing the distance behind us and Mortez started reversing towards them too. Monroe was a few feet behind them with fury in his eyes, yelling my name. Terror was all I could feel and I didn’t know what to do.
“Move!” I yelled, my voice pitchy as my throat was rubbed raw.
They dove into the bushes and Mortez snarled, shoving the stick back into drive and I twisted around to look at Saint on the ground ahead of us with fear making me ill.
He started pushing himself up and I gasped, relief spilling through me as tears washed over my skin. He was dirty, bloody and battered, his lip cut and his body filthy. But he was alive.
I grabbed the door handle, trying to get out, kicking and shoving it but it wouldn’t open.
Saint raised his gun, pointing it directly at Mortez with his upper lip peeled back, sheer determination in his eyes.
Mortez revved the engine but Saint staggered toward us, clearly going to take out Mortez even if it cost him his own life.
“Saint – get out of the way!” I begged as Mortez raised his own gun and my heart splintered.
Saint pulled the trigger the gun clicked uselessly as it rang empty.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke to me.
“No,” I gasped as Mortez leaned out of the window, aiming his gun at Saint.
Mortez fired as I lunged for the wheel again and I drowned in my screams as Saint was thrown backwards by the bullet, crashing to the ground, the headlights illuminating the blood spreading out over his shirt. Mortez shoved me back into my seat as he accelerated past Saint’s body, aiming the gun at me to keep me there and my heart shattered into a million pieces.
I was blind, deaf, mute. A primal switch flipped in my head as I launched myself onto Mortez’s lap, knocking the gun aside before he could pull the trigger. I punched and kicked then bit into his face like a feral creature. I barely felt his punches as he returned them, my mind gone to an absent place as I fought to destroy him.
He grunted, cursing as he fought me back and I punched his temple so hard that he nearly lost consciousness, falling limp in his seat as he cursed. The car bumped off of the track towards a tree and I cried out as we hit it and slammed to a halt. I was thrown into the dash, and gasped as Mortez’s weight crushed me. I shoved him back with a growl of effort, catching my breath before my gaze fell on the open window.
I lurched toward it, scrambling over Mortez to escape and pushed myself half way out with hope burning a path through my veins. Monroe was suddenly there, his hand grabbing mine as he said my name with utter desperation and my fingers locked around
his a second before Mortez got us into reverse and the car shot backwards, peeling away from the trees. Mortez’s nails dug into my skin, making me cry out in pain as Monroe toppled to his knees, losing his grip on me and suddenly we were tearing down the dirt track again.
“Tatum!” Monroe roared.
I hung out the window, my gaze finding Saint on the ground as Blake pressed down on his wound, his face written in pain and grief.
“Saint!” I screamed, fighting to get out as Mortez held onto me with an iron grip.
Kyan was racing after the car with fury etched into his features. “I’m coming for you!” he roared and I didn’t know if those words were a threat to Mortez or a promise to me.
Mortez hauled me back inside with a snarl of effort, throwing me into my seat and his palm smashed across my cheek a second later, making my skull ring from the impact. My lips were wet with blood and I turned to him, spitting it at his face. He lifted his gun, placing it right against my forehead and my heart dipped with terror.
His face was marred with scratches and a bite mark oozed blood on his right cheek. “Give me a reason, darlin’.”
He accelerated faster down the dirt road, the car bumping and jostling as he careered along. He returned the gun to his lap, but it was still pointed at me and I knew if I made one wrong move, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.
I looked back over my shoulder as tears made me choke, my Night Keepers lost in the dark, the shadows stealing them away from me.
Please don’t be dead. Please please please.
“If you get feisty again, sweet thing, my finger might just slip and blow your pretty brains out.”
Mortez’s eyes were a door to all my nightmares. But I was bloody and broken and bruised, so did I even have anything more to lose by trying to escape? My dad was gone. Saint was gone. My heart was barely hanging on by a thread. I didn’t want to face a world without either of them in it.
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 63
