Paint It All Red (Mindf*ck #5)(39)

“Oh damn,” Hadley says on a breath as I go to open the door, making it easier to hear everything going on outside us.

“What?” I ask, needing to stop myself from watching Lana tackle an entire army on her own.

“The town is on fire,” Hadley whispers, pointing to another monitor.

A screen flips again to show three unconscious deputies, along with three unconscious people lying on top of each other in the back hatch of a SUV far away from the fire line.

The fire looks to be moving toward the town, spreading around the maze-like structure in a perfect circle, as though an experienced fire burner is controlling the directionality of the flames.

“He knows how to burn shit. Now I’m really turned on,” Hadley whispers to herself as I move back behind her.

“They’ve been planning this for years, him longer than her probably,” I say as I force myself to look at Lana again.

She’s pinned against a corner, smiling as they fire at her in rapid succession. The bullets can’t reach her unless they get another angle, but they can keep her pinned there until they can finally shoot through the steel.

“She looks…happy?” Hadley says, swallowing hard.

It’s like she has a death wish, which would mean she might not have been wearing that mask to keep her identity safe from the world because she’s going to live in it.

“What if she only wore that mask because she didn’t want anyone linking her to me?” I ask on a pained breath.

Hadley’s breath catches, but I fight back the emotions, refusing to give up hope that Lana plans to live.

She flips back from the corner, spinning as she fires her guns simultaneously again. By some miracle, not a single bullet connects with her, but her aim is almost dead on as she puts a bullet in four heads before diving behind another desk.

She flips the desk, and she kicks it into a deputy, who falls down in front of her. Then she grabs him, jerking him up to his feet, and using him as a human shield for a brief second as she fires at two others.

She’s pushing them back. For some reason, she’s advancing, and they keep getting closer and closer to the basement door.

One finally rushes into the basement, and she drops her shield when a bullet goes through the man and cuts into her shoulder. I blow out a breath of relief when I see it’s nothing more than a graze. Jake even zooms in on it, as though he’s freaking out as much as I am.

He zooms back out as Lana fires over the top of the desk, keeping them corralled toward the back.

“Call in the national guard! Call in every-fucking body you have!” someone is shouting into the phone from outside the office we’re in.

The one who ducked into the basement comes running back out, his eyes wide and panicked as he shouts something to the others I can’t understand amidst the gunfire.

Something changes. They start advancing, risking their lives in the open instead of staying shielded as they fire on her hard.

She ducks, covering her head as one grabs a MK 47 and fires rapidly.

She slides toward the front, crawling, but suddenly her head throws back and her mouth opens for a scream as blood spatters from her leg.

“No!” I shout, racing out of the room, rushing toward the exit.

I’m shoved at the chest, the man guarding the door who has been eyeing me.

“You’re to stay put,” he growls.

“Let me by!” I snap, reaching for my weapon, but Leonard crashes into my side, grabbing my hand before I can.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he snaps.

“They’re going to fucking kill her!”

He jerks me back, dragging me toward Craig’s office again. His face pales when he sees our private monitor.

“They’ll lock you up. There’s no way you’ll even get there in time,” he hisses, slamming the door as his eyes turn back to the monitor.

Johnson emerges from the sheriff’s office for the first time since Lana showed up. He comes up behind her, firing rapidly as she drags herself in between two desks.

I see the fear in her eyes turn to anger as she loads her guns again. She pulls out a knife, and I watch as she jumps to stand on her one good leg and throws the knife. Johnson’s eyes widen seconds before the knife sticks into his forehead, but the gunshots ring out faster, and I watch as her body jerks and drops, the bullets hitting her.

“No!” I shout again, slamming my fist into the wall as my heart caves in on itself.

Then I look at Leonard.

“The chopper. Get me to the fucking chopper now!”

He shakes his head slowly. “Even if we could get to it, it’d be too late, Logan.”

My stomach rolls and my heart implodes in my chest as I slide down the wall, gripping my head as everything in me turns to stone, weighing too much to move. Tears burn against my eyes as I watch Lana weakly climb across the floor, firing again at the deputies.

I can’t watch.

I can’t watch her die.





Chapter 15


I should like to lie at your feet and die in your arms.

—Voltaire



LANA



Pain shoots through my body, and my hearing is nothing more than a constant roar of never-ending gunfire.

I cry out as I tie off my leg to help stop the bleeding. My chest and back ache with the amount of bullets that have pounded into the vest, but they didn’t break through. My shoulder burns from the graze, but it’s overshadowed by the bullet that passed through my hand earlier.