Page 35 of Warped

Chapter Seventeen

X

It felt strange to be finally holding her hand, to have her right next to me. She hadn’t flinched when I’d touched her, or acted as though she didn’t trust me in any way, even though she’d told me I’d been paid to kill her. I wished I could remember our story. More than anything else, that felt like the most important thing in my life. To have forgotten any of the times when I’d had the chance to touch her skin was sacrilege.

“Come on,” I told her. “We need to go.”

I could tell she was torn at leaving her sister. I was frustrated on her behalf. Did Verity not see the way her sister looked at her? I didn’t know what had happened between them, but the way Verity looked at her sister was not the way her sister looked at her. Her sister had glared at her with real hatred, and I couldn’t imagine what had inspired such feelings.

“They’re distracted at the front of the building, so we need to go out the back,” I said.

She looked up at me. “Please tell me you have a car.”

“Yeah, it’s Harvey’s. It’s parked out back.”

Harvey glanced back over his shoulder and nodded.

“Thanks, Harvey,” she said, still holding my hand. “I guess I have you to thank especially.”

“Let’s save the thanks for when we get out of here.”

Tony the Hound’s place was huge—numerous hallways and doors leading in various directions. I was amazed we’d managed to run into Vee in the first place.

“It’s this way,” she said, pulling me to the left.

I shook my head. “I’m sure we came in from the other direction.”

“No, it’s quicker this way. I promise.”

Intermittent gunfire still sounded from the front of the house. It had been sheer good luck that whoever was firing on the house had turned up when they had. Harvey and I had been scoping out the place from the rear, when we’d heard the rattle of gunfire and glass breaking. Though perhaps running into the middle of a gunfight had been a moment of madness, I’d known it would be enough of a distraction to allow us to get in unseen.

Getting out, however, wasn’t going to be so easy.

“This way!” Verity said. “The door at the end of this hallway leads out onto the grounds at the back of the property.”

I exchanged a glance with Harvey, and he led the way, holding his gun out in front of him. He pushed open the door, and sure enough, fresh air and moonlight greeted us.

We were out of the house.

“This way,” said Harvey, motioning with his head to the left. He wanted to take us around to the side of the property, so we could leave the grounds the same way we entered.

We rounded the corner. A lone man was keeping lookout, a weapon drawn. I yanked Vee back, pulling her behind me to cover her, but Harvey had stepped out first. He got in the first shot, but missed. The other man fired back. Harvey returned fire, but a bullet from the other man’s gun caught him in the chest and Harvey flew backward and hit the ground.

Fuck.

I stepped out, still keeping Vee behind my body, and fired my weapon. The man who’d shot Harvey dropped to the ground, blood spurting from a gunshot wound in his throat. Looked like Harvey hadn’t missed after all.

I didn’t have time to feel bad for Harvey. The gunfire would have caught someone’s attention. I crouched briefly beside him to check for a pulse, but I could tell without even touching him that he was dead. Even if he’d been injured, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Trying to carry a deadweight like Harvey would get both Verity and me killed. Harvey probably had thirty pounds on me, and however strong I might have been before the accident, I knew I’d lost muscle mass when I’d been in the hospital. I almost got to my feet and continued, but then remembered something. I shoved my hand in Harvey’s pockets until my fingers found the jumble of metal. They were keys to both the car and his apartment. We wouldn’t have gotten far without them. I also found his cell phone, and then snatched up his weapon and shoved it down the back of my pants. I figured he wasn’t going to need it now. Another quick pat down revealed his wallet. I didn’t want to leave that either, knowing the address would lead Tony’s men straight to us.

The other man was dead as well, and so I picked up the weapon he’d been using, too. I’d left mine with the tutor back in the house, and I thought we’d need as much firepower as we could get. So far, I didn’t see any signs of anyone else coming. Most of Tony’s men were caught up with whatever was happening around the front of the property. Tony the Hound obviously had plenty of people who would be happy to see him dead.

He could add me to the list.

I tugged on Vee’s arm, leading across the back of the property, toward the rear wall which we’d scaled to access the house. The rope we’d used to scale the wall on the way in was still hanging down, so I grabbed it and offered it to Vee.

She cocked an eyebrow at me. “I’m not some little princess, you know. I don’t need taking care of.”

I wiggled it at her again. “Just take the damned rope.”

---