Page 41 of Overcast

Cold, distant, someone took something from him—Reagan perhaps—and he has zero to lose.

Don’t they say that’s the most dangerous kind of man?

“Bishop,” Mills states urgently, and I’m assuming he’s on his cell. “Code yellow.”

“We just want the girl,” a man’s voice hollers. “We’ll let the rest of you go.”

Emric snorts.

“Two minutes,” Mills conveys before Emric nods.

“Any last words, sweetheart?” I don’t get to respond before the window behind him is smashed in. Another shower of transparent material raining over Emric’s shoulders and head.

He bows forward from the impact before I feel a tight-gripped yank on my left arm, escorted by the close-range of a firearm.

My brain can only register one thing at a time.

The ringing in my ears.

But no new abrasion of pain radiates throughout my body as my butt slides over the black leather of my seat.

The muffled hollers of male voices are whisper-like in my ears, but it’s those damn shots of the guns that always rattle my composure and immediately register. As if on cue, another goes off at close range, jolting my frame back in my spot.

My eyes catch red splatters on the back of Mills’s seat as a cool spring breeze hits the side of my head. My neck cranes to my, now, open door discovering a lanky man in a black tee and jeans face up on the ground—shot in the forehead.

A scream of horror chokes me.

I can’t move.

I’m not able to pry my attention away. A stream of rich, red flows down the edge of his face. His eyes broad from shock.

I can’t do anything but blink. I want to rush outside to freedom. To rid myself of my current predicament.

However, I know what’s behind me. Waiting for me to make that move so that Emric can just act on what he’s always wanted to do. Not that it’d matter because my leg won’t carry me far anyway.

A strangled gurgle sounds from Emric’s spot in the vehicle, but I don’t get a chance to see what’s going on.

Instead, another body—vast and pudgy—stands within my view, his legs on either side of the dead man on the cement.

“Come on, girl. We have to go.” Sausage-like fingers gently wrap around my forearm when he continues, “Now, girl.”

Slowly, I move, taking the opportunity—the only one I have other than staying where I am when my right bicep is jerked back.

Emric.

I hear him grunt, hating that I know his voice like that when he practically rips my arm from my socket. I’m a human tug ‘o war, rocking side to side until Emric’s grip abruptly releases.

“I got you.” My neck snaps back to the chubby man. A thick, pink scar runs from his mouth to his cheek as he scans the area behind the car, keeping a firm hold on me. “This way.”

A mixture of howls, scuffling, chaos of male shouts encases me within the scene.

“I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

He sounds like he means it. That he genuinely wants to do so, but I don’t believe anyone anymore.

I don’t understand how everything led me here. How one night, where I wanted to stay locked in my bedroom, ended up with my being tortured and interrogated like a criminal. Held in the clutches of a man who wouldn’t listen or understand reason. So gung-ho on having me worn down so heavily that this truth he wanted spilled would suddenly leave my lips.

Rounding the SUV with the man’s hand on my back, he grunts before his guidance leaves my body. Pivoting around, the chunky man is now in a fistfight with Mills.

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