clenched, he said, “There’s a car in the church parking lot you can use. It’s beaten up on the outside, but the engine purrs with more than a hundred ponies ready to run.”
Typical guy description.
I gave him a jaunty salute.
He marched off to his office, mumbling under his breath, and we marched to the armory.
By the time the girls and I finished loading up with weapons—daggers in our boots, sedatives in our purses, guns sheathed at our waists, extra bullets in our pockets, brass knuckles on our hands—Cole was dressed and ready, the IV nowhere in sight.
His cheeks were paler than before, indicative of the strain he’d just put himself through, as he handed each of us one of the burners. “My new number is already programmed in.”
“Sweet sling, Cole,” Kat said with her patented smile. “It only knocks three points off your alpha-male card.”
His response was dry. “I’m sure spanking a naughty little girl like you will return my number to its original glory.”
Kat’s wide gaze immediately swung to me. “You didn’t tell me that your boyfriend had a pain-and-punishment fetish.”
“You didn’t ask. But yeah, he does. I’m threatened with a spanking daily.”
“Lucky,” she whispered, skipping past me, heading toward the entrance to the secret passage.
We climbed in the golf cart, Reeve at the wheel.
“Where do you want to go first?” she asked. “When we’re topside, I mean.”
“I...don’t know,” I said. There were too many options. Gavin’s car. Was it still there? Frosty’s house. Justin and Jaclyn’s house. Actually, any of the slayers’ homes.
“Then it doesn’t matter which road we take,” Kat pointed out. “With nowhere to go, we’ll never reach a destination.”
A nice way of saying make a decision already, dummy.
“We’ll go to Cole’s gym.” Or what was left of it. Any slayers on the run might have gone there. Might have stuck close by after the fire had died, hoping other slayers would show up.
Reeve parked at the back of the room, the one with the gurneys, and we walked to the ladder.
“What happens if we get separated?” she asked.
Hope for the best, plan for the worst. “If you can, get your butts back here. If you can’t, hide and call me. If you lose your phones, don’t panic. I’ll find you. Whatever it takes.”
But I couldn’t help wondering if I’d just made the worst decision of my life.
EAT YOUR HEART OUT
The gym was a pile of charred rubble, as expected, but the sight of it made my heart fester and ooze with an infected wound in need of tending. Shouldn’t be this way. The air, heavy with smoke, painted the surrounding landscape an eerie gray. There was something very postapocalyptic about it. As if we were the only survivors and we now had to figure out how to navigate a new world.
At least there wasn’t a rabbit cloud.
The authorities had already come and gone, leaving barricades behind.
Reeve hid our car at the side of another house. The gym was—had been—a large red barn planted in the middle of a neighborhood with homes spaced apart by acres of wheat and surrounded by a forest.
Any one of my friends could be waiting in the forest. Possibly injured.
Possibly being hunted.
“Reeve, you’re with Cole,” I said, taking charge. “Kat, you’re with me.”
“Prison rules?” Kat asked. “Kill first and ask questions later?” She withdrew a .38 revolver. It had no safety, but it did have a laser at the end to help her sight whatever she wanted to hit. Plus, the trigger was coiled tighter to prevent her from shooting accidentally.
Yeah. It had happened. She startled easily.
Reeve pulled a .22 from her purse. The gun had very little backlash, was more likely to irritate a target than kill it, but with halfway decent aim, she would be able to slow even the biggest of men.
“Actually, we’re going by Holland rules,” Cole said. “The best safety is this.” He wiggled his index finger in front of their faces. “Don’t put yours near the trigger unless you’re ready to fire. Side note. You aren’t ready to fire unless Ali or I say you’re ready.”
“But keep your weapons out and ready,” I added.
Cole kissed me before we disembarked, sending a warm pulse through me. With the girls at our sides, we ran toward the forest, tree limbs seeming to go out of their way to slap us. When we were deep enough inside that we were concealed from prying eyes, everyone slowed and moved in the direction of the gym.
“Ready to split up?” I asked. “You guys come in from the west, and we’ll come in from the east. We’ll cover more ground.”
“Sounds good.” Cole held out his arm, stopping me. Which in turn stopped the girls. His gaze pierced me. “Don’t get hurt. I mean it.”
“As if I’d dare. But you’d better be careful, too. You aren’t just a pretty decoration for the world to enjoy, you know. You’re my decoration.”
“And you’re my toy.”
We shared a look ripe with amusement and promise before branching apart.
“You guys are weird,” Kat said, “but the good news is, Cole is probably stronger than ninety-nine percent of the population, even with his arm in a sling.”
“A perfect description for Frosty, too.”
“True story.” Worry in her eyes, quickly extinguished.
With every exhalation, mist formed in front of my face. A signal trained trackers would pick up on, but it couldn’t be helped. We made our way to the east side of the gym and...saw footprints! Excitement mingled with hope, filling me up and giving me new purpose. Who had made them? Bronx or Mackenzie?
But...why not both? Why was there only one set?
Some of my excitement drained.
“Come on.” We followed the prints for a few yards. They were big. Too big to belong to Mackenzie. One—the right one—dragged. And there was a drop of blood beside that one...and that one. Bronx, if that’s who had left these, was injured.
I stepped through one line of bush after another, remaining on alert, my .44 at the ready. The drops were getting thicker, and I thought the person responsible must have begun to drag his other foot, too...only to stop. I looked around. Saw nothing. Up. Down. Left. Right. Where the heck—
“There!”
