Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(161)

“Oh? And did you think they would just run away from me?” He laughed, waving his gun in the air. “Fly away, little birds, be free!” he mocked. “No, they belong to me! They love me! Like you should have!”

“That’s not love.” Bruno gestured behind him at the bodies, so still on their cots. “Those girls are dead,” he said. “That’s love?”

“No, that’s natural selection.” King’s voice took on a lecturing tone. “They culled themselves, you see. DeepWeave is psychologically demanding, as you well know. Only the strongest survive.”

“You sick f*ck,” Bruno said. “You really need to die.”

“It’s your day for that, son.” King’s voice was cheerful. “Thanks to your lady friend. She’s a bit confused right now. It’s been a stressful assignment for her. To say nothing of sexually stressful. The tales of your torrid affair make an old man blush.”

“I never said anything about us! Don’t listen!” she yelled, but Bruno would not even meet her eyes. It was a stab in the back she could never have imagined. “Bruno, you can’t believe that I—”

“I said, be still!” King thundered. “Get out of the way, Lily. I’ve had enough. This is a failed experiment, and it ends, now.” He aimed.

Bam. The bullet hit a metal bed frame. Bruno dove, hit the floor, started to crawl. One of the kids screamed, clutching her arm.

King clucked his tongue. “Now look what you made me do!”

Bruno sprang up and upended one of the cots. Bam, the bullet punched through the mattress. Chunks of the latex foam flew. A window shattered. The girl who’d been hit was screaming, a thin, piercing sound. The other kid was yelling, too.

Bam, the bullet tore the wall next to Lily’s head, gouging a hole. She dropped to the ground, crawling between metal posts, the clawed feet of metal IV stands, the rolling carts that held medical equipment.

Bam. She poked her head out. Bruno was swinging an IV rack at King, who darted back. The glass bottle of fluid smashed against the wall, liquid splashing, glass tinkling. Bam. Bruno upended another bed frame, pinning King against the wall. He darted out the door while the older man struggled to extricate himself. The bed frame teetered, fell on its side with a clang and a crunch. King took off after Bruno.

The room was silent now but for the keening of the girl with the grazed arm, which bled but not profusely. Cold wind whined through the broken window. The gun went off outside—again. And again. Lily flinched each time, hoping the shots hadn’t found their mark.

She felt deafened. Numbed. Her legs shook and wobbled as she clambered her way over the snarl of wires, cables, overturned beds, and IV racks jutting out at crazy angles to get to the wounded girl and the boy with her, a freckled kid of about sixteen. Both of them huddled by the wall, looking confused and stoned out of their minds. Exactly why she’d hesitated to mess with them in the first place.

Slowly, relentlessly, her mind wrapped all the way around this stark new reality without snapping. Bruno had abandoned her.

To be perfectly fair, he was currently being pursued by a madman with a gun. But he believed that she’d set him up. That she’d betrayed him, his family and friends, and deliberately lured him to his death. A bubbly gurgling sound came out of her. The room swirled, wavered, and blurred. Snot, everywhere. So. She was on her own again. To the ends of the universe. So what the f*ck else was new.

Onward. She proceeded with grim purpose, grabbing the arm of the first kid, shoving him in the direction of the door, kicking his leg to encourage him to move. Slowly, clumsily, she got the two young people out of the door, into the corridor. Onward. To the grand staircase, the main entrance. She nudged the young people into a stumbling lope. The huge sky-lit great hall ahead of them glowed, beckoning—

A big hand clamped onto her upper arm, twisting until a shriek of pain jerked out of her throat. Swinging her around, slamming her against the wall.

Crack. Oh, God . . . her head . . . oh, ouch . . .

“Where the f*ck do you think you’re going?” Hobart snarled.





Zoe struggled, kicking and thrashing. They’d left her trussed in the SUV and run when they heard gunshots. Running to show King how brave, how loyal they were. But she knew the truth. Pigs. Demons.

They thought she was finished, but she would destroy them and save King. She thought of the day they’d dined together. When he’d said the words that made the universe explode in song.

The memory strengthened her. She had so much love to give him. But first she had to show him her true worth and destroy his enemies.

She kicked free of the tarp and maneuvered herself backward until she found the door release. It opened, dumping her bound body out onto the concrete floor. The contact hurt every ripped muscle fiber, every inflamed tendon. A chorus of agony. But pain was nothing to her.

She slithered through the huge garage, worming past several cans of gasoline piled against the wall to the workshop, the circular table saw. She pushed herself up against the edge of the blade, rubbing and scraping at the plastic cuff until it yielded.

The rush of circulation into her hands almost made her scream. She’d scraped her wrists raw. Blood dripped from her fingertips. But she was on a holy mission. Blood had to be spilled. To purify her, to show King her utter commitment to him. Body and soul.