Beautiful Soldier: A Dark High School Romance (The Heights Crew Book 3)

by E. M. Moore

  At the end of the aisle, I watch as Magnum stands to his full height and pulls the trigger. Three shots ricochet through the room. He starts barking orders, his gun still out in front of him. “Move!” The other gunfire has petered out and hope swells inside my chest.

  I creep out behind Magnum, keeping low while he surveys the room. At the apex of losing my cover, I glance to my right. A gun sits on the bleachers. Further up, a body lies across several rows, blood dripping off it and down the shiny surface.

  I sneak my hand around the railing and grab the gun. Crouching back down, I open the chamber to see how many rounds there are. Four. I guess it pays to be in a room filled with people who have no problem carrying. How he got this through Security, I don’t know, but the bigger question is, how did the fucker with the semi-automatic get his through Security?

  I walk out, Brawler following close behind with a hand on my back as we head toward the middle of the ring. Bodies litter the floor, scattered everywhere in varying positions as they were trying to flee. I quickly scan them and find no signs of Jiko or Oscar.

  Masculine yelling catches my attention, and I stare up at the box to find a guy with a gun pointing it out the window.

  “Run!” I barrel into Mag as we hightail it out of the open space, finding a place to stand just under the box. The glass explodes overhead and rains down onto the blood-coated cement. The crowd, still unable to get out, screams. Some cry as they crowd toward the exits once more.

  My only thoughts are of Oscar and Johnny right now. I don’t know where Oscar is, but I know Johnny’s up there in the box. At least, that’s where I saw him last. “We have to get up there.”

  Mag shakes his head. “They have the advantage.”

  “Johnny’s up there,” I grind out.

  Mag swallows, glancing at the gun I was able to pick up. “You know how to shoot that?”

  “Yes.”

  He starts up the steps to the box, keeping low. In my head, I’m thrown back a couple of weeks when we were at the warehouse looking for Farmingham’s body. We didn’t know what awaited us then, but we know now. Trouble.

  “Follow me. Stay right behind me. If I tell you to run, I want you to run. Do not second guess me,” Mag orders.

  I nod Brawler forward, taking up the rear since I’m the only one of us who is armed besides Magnum. I watch our backs, making sure another intruder doesn’t come in from behind, wiping us out before we have a chance to get up there.

  What makes matters worse is that I don’t know the layout of these rooms or the box. I knew how the other box was set up, but I have no idea what we’re getting ourselves into with this one. Are there places where they could hide and shoot? What about walls? What about…well, anything?

  “What’s the layout like?” I whisper to Brawler.

  Sweat runs down his tight muscles, mingling in blood. Hopefully, that’s the only blood I see on my guys tonight.

  More yelling erupts as we move up the stairs stealthily. In the distance, echoing sirens sound, signaling the police are on the way.

  I must be becoming more Heights than home because to me, sirens don’t mean safety. Not anymore.

  “It’s all open,” Brawler hisses. “It’s a replica of the other box.”

  So much for a surprise attack, but at least they’ll be out in the open, too.

  As soon as Magnum hits the top stair, he barges inside the open doorway, moving to his full height. He shoots, the shots ringing through the air in quick succession. As I come around the corner after Brawler, a guy falls to his knees, a bullet wound lodged in his thigh. His gun clashes to the ground, and Big Daddy K scoops down to grab it.

  More yelling jolts me. Both sides give out orders to drop guns. I have my own weapon trained on a guy I don’t recognize while also searching the room for Johnny. I find him in the corner, slumped to the ground. Brawler follows my gaze and immediately starts after him amid guys yelling at him to stop.

  The guy I’m squaring down raises his gun, pointing it at Brawler, and I shoot. I hit his shoulder, knocking his gun out of his hand. Another shot goes off, but it’s drowned out by an explosion. The building shakes, and I duck to catch my footing.

  Another ear-splitting detonation sounds. I know exactly what it is because I’ve already been through this. A bombing.

  “Kill them!” K orders, already raising his gun in front of him to point at a guy I don’t recognize.

  An explosion hits, and the floor of the box tilts. The braces underneath the private box whine and groan. They aren’t holding. One of Magnum’s security buddies grabs K’s arms, dragging him toward the stairs. I scramble toward Magnum as the front of the box splinters. The guy I shot, along with the one Magnum took out, slide as the floor gives out underneath them. They tumble out of the now open box. The wall full of windows that overlook the fights just disappears, taking the men with them. I glance around to find K hurrying toward the stairs. He looks to his left just before he hits the staircase. He sees Brawler hauling an injured Johnny to his feet. He sees his fucking son there but runs off anyway.

  Dirt and dust fill the air. It closes in until I choke on it. The fire alarm rings, and I realize the particles in the air might not all be from the explosion. Worry crashes into me. We’re on the second story of an exploding building that might be on fire.

  Magnum hauls me to my feet as I choke. We meet Brawler and Johnny by the door to the stairs and look out. The stairs are half gone. K and the last guard left standing are running toward a fire exit on the opposite side of the room.

  The building seems to have settled for now, but that doesn’t mean another explosion won’t go off. Or that a fire won’t suddenly appear.

  Magnum descends the staircase until he’s on the last remaining stair. He jumps. There’s a five-foot gap between the floor and the last stair, but he lands with ease. The stairs are now rickety with no support, but Brawler and I are able to hand Johnny down to Mag. He’s bleeding from his hip area, and when Magnum grabs him, he lets out an injured cry through gritted teeth.

  Magnum sets him down on the bleacher at his feet and then turns back for me. I turn, scrambling off the edge and holding on to the very end while Mag grabs me by the waist and helps me down.

  Brawler’s next. The last stair breaks under his weight as he tries the same maneuver I did and crashes to the ground, taking him with it.

  “Fuck.” He pulls his hand away. A big gash opens up his palm, and blood pours out. He grabs it with his other hand like he can hold the two sides of his skin together, but blood seeps through his fingers. Magnum whips his shirt off and ties it around Brawler’s hand before pulling Johnny to his feet next to him. We run down the bleachers as fast as we can. The alarm still blares overhead and smoke and dust cloud our vision.

  “I got him,” Brawler says, taking Johnny from Magnum. He hoists Johnny into his arms as Magnum takes his gun out again, searching the area when we get to the cement floor. The only people left in the room are us and the dead bodies scattered about the ground. The outside sirens get louder. Out the tall windows lining one wall, red and white lights bounce off the smoke and particles floating through the air.

  “We need an exit,” I choke out.

  Magnum starts moving toward the door K went out of, but the building shakes again. I can’t quite describe the feeling of uneven, moving footing underneath my feet as it pitches this way and that. It’s like walking on a trampoline, only worse. A trampoline that a thousand other people are jumping on.

  A splintering crack splits the cement floor. In a scene you might find in a natural disaster movie, I jump to the side, slamming into Magnum. Concrete chunks fall through the center of the floor, a split opening up the room. Magnum and I scramble away from the widening crack as flames dart up through the missing floor.

  Brawler and Johnny are thrown back.

  “No!”

  Heat washes over my face. I choke, my lungs burning from the inside out. My gun falls from my hand, and I can’t find it
in the wreckage. Concrete pebbles and shards litter the floor, imbedding into my palms as I move back across the floor. Then, I’m being hauled to my feet, staring back at the space where Brawler and Johnny just were but finding nothing.

  “Brawler!” I cry out.

  I can’t see anything through the flames that are spreading up over the ceiling now. The heat is almost unbearable.

  “Come on, Kyla,” Mag urges. “We can’t go that way.”

  I turn, finding a Jacob I don’t recognize. It looks like he’s been in a warzone. He’s coated in gray and white dust. So much so that I can’t even see the color of his hair or beard poking through ash.

  I take one look over my shoulder to search for them again, but find my legs working to keep up with Magnum as he pulls me toward the exit. It’s terrible knowing you can’t do anything to help the ones you love. I don’t know if they’re okay. I don’t know if they got burned. I don’t know if they fell through the floor when it opened up. An ache starts in my chest and spreads.

  I can only hope they’re doing the same thing we are right now: Running for their lives.

  My chest twinges with the shitty air in my lungs and the fear of not knowing who’s where.

  Again.

  It’s like the story of my life.

  Through the floating ash, the red Exit sign barely filters through in front of us. Magnum and I hit the floor and crawl toward it. He checks the door before swinging it open into a hallway that’s been untouched. It’s as pristine as it was when they remade the building into The Ring.

  A policeman darts down the hallway. “Cotton. Fuck.”

  I cough, my lungs protesting the clean air. It kills my throat. The sound is hoarse, echoing through the vacuous space.

  “Downstairs,” he tells us, waving toward the area he came from. “We have a triage area set up.”

  The policeman claps his back, leaving it there, and among every other thing that’s just happened, I fixate on that. This policeman’s hand on Magnum’s shoulder.

  I walk out into the night air ahead of them. A paramedic waits for me just outside the door. He pulls me toward an ambulance, the crisp night air creating havoc on my lungs, and I cough again. They put an oxygen mask over my face, and I dart my gaze around as I’m being led down the block, away from the building, away from the fire. I look for familiar faces, but I just see curious people lining the streets as policemen try pushing them back, telling them they’re unsure if there will be any more explosions, so they need to move away from the building. Roadblocks are set up just beyond the ambulances, and the further we get away from the building, the clearer the air gets.

  The paramedic leads me to a triage area at the back bumper of an ambulance. Magnum walks toward me. Another paramedic asks questions at his side, but Mag waves him away, and the uniformed rescue personnel finally leaves, recognizing Magnum isn’t going to give him anything or even let him help.

  Jacob reaches out his hand, threading his fingers through mine. Just as I’m about to remark that it’s always just the two of us after shit goes down, a chorus of yelling erupts behind him. Both of us turn to find several emergency personnel surrounding a stretcher.

  I jump to my feet, tear the oxygen mask off, and push through the crowd as I make my way to the still form. There’s so many people it could be lying there. A spectator. One of the shooters. Or it could be someone I would give anything to see right now.

  The guy on the stretcher pushes away one of the EMT’s hands. A gasp sticks in my throat. Tribal tattoos. A hand scattered with familiar black markings. “Brawler!”

  He turns his head toward us, Mag’s hands feathering at my waist as we finally get to the stretcher.

  “We need to get him to an ambulance,” one of the paramedics scolds.

  A cop gets in our way, reaching his hands out at his sides to hold us back.

  “I’m his girlfriend!” I say, pushing back.

  Behind the cop, Brawler struggles to his feet at the protests of all the emergency personnel. He ignores them, coming up behind the cop and nudging him out of the way. I throw my arms around his waist, resting my head on his soot-stained chest. Just feeling him breathe beneath my skin is a relief. He got out. He—

  I pull away, all breath escaping my chest. “B-Brawler…where’s Johnny?”

  He grits his teeth and looks away.

  No. No, no. I pull away from him, searching in the direction where I first saw Brawler on the stretcher. Johnny has to be somewhere. He has to be.

  Brawler grabs my shoulders and makes me look into his swirling blue gaze. “They took him, Kyla.” He swallows. “I don’t know who it was. I tried to fight them, but they knocked me out.” He peeks up at the growing bump on his forehead that he definitely didn’t get from the fights. “He’s gone.”

  I stumble back, and if it weren’t for Magnum steadying us both, Brawler and I would’ve gone down in a tangle of limbs and broken hearts.

  I curl my fingers into Brawler’s skin, close my eyes, and make a promise just as powerful as the one I made my parents when I said I’d get revenge for their deaths. I will find Johnny Marx…alive, even if it’s the last thing I do.

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  Safe Haven Academy Series Blurb

  Macie Davenport’s life is over.

  The girl who has everything is reduced to an empty black hole of nothing they call Safe Haven Academy. It’s where bad souls go for reform, but end up getting worse until they’re shipped out to another “sheltered place” with an equally uninspired name. It doesn’t matter what they dress it up as, Macie knows places like this are for people like her—people everyone wants to forget.

  The screwed up part? Macie’s not bad. Torn with grief and living in a fantasy world? Yes. A psychopath? Not likely.

  Worse yet, she can’t forget. Not even a little. Not even trying with all her might, she’ll never forget the consequences of the night the sky turned dark.

  Then, they force themselves into her life. A shining light in the bleakness around her, three boys irrevocably change her fate. Can she allow the sun to shine through? Or will Macie give up before giving them a chance?

  About the Author

  E. M. Moore is a USA Today Bestselling author of Contemporary and Paranormal Romance. She's drawn to write within the teen and college-aged years where her characters get knocked on their asses, torn inside out, and put back together again by their first loves. Whether it's in a fantastical setting where human guards protect the creatures of the night or a realistic high school backdrop where social cliques rule the halls, the emotions are the same. Dark. Twisty. Angsty. Raw.

  When Erin's not writing, you can find her dreaming up vacations for her family, watching murder mystery shows, or dancing in her kitchen while she pretends to cook.