Page 67 of Law Of Love

He wasn’t working alone.

God, I wanted to knock his front teeth out so badly.

This was the man who’d been hunting me. He fit the vague description perfectly. He had tailed me in my car. Watched me at the grocery store. Followed me on my walk back from the dentist. Stalked me after I'd left my teaching session with the kids.

I’d felt him there—his presence eerie—but the sensation would never last more than a minute, meaning Kaleb and Brent could never pinpoint exactly who it was.

I was his prey, and he’d finally pounced.

My brown eyes enlarged when we approached the exit of the maze. Sweat trickled from my hairline, and I snuck a glance at the man to see that he’d hidden his gun from sight. However, I could feel it pressed against me through his thick, blood-stained jacket.

I observed people as we passed them, longing for someone to pick up on my tense posture and the man’s meaty snarl and to say something, but no one paid us any mind. It was as if we were invisible.

He had blood smeared across his face, for God’s sake.

He roughly guided me over to where we were further away from the crowd, his thick fingers slicing into my flesh as he held onto me tightly, speeding up his steps.

Was this going to be the last time people saw me alive? I didn’t know what to do. Scream? Run? Kick him in the balls and attempt to grab his gun and shoot him in the chest? I’d fired a gun before. I knew vaguely how they worked.

I didn’t have time to weigh up my options before the man was suddenly yanked back into the open door of a storage warehouse beside us, his tight grasp on my wrist sending me flying with him, landing on the dirt with a harsh thud.

A groan escaped my mouth, my ankle pulsating beneath the weight of my body. I peered through the dimly lit room to see Kaleb standing with his gun pointed at my abductor’s chest, his eyes full of rage. Brent had his own gun drawn, but it was aimed at a different man, who had dark hair and was also smeared with crimson liquid, looking like he’d been socked in the face a few times.

“Hannah,” I breathed out in relief once I spotted her in the corner of the room. She rushed over to me with a wheeze, crumbling to the floor next to me and wrapping her arms around my body. She was fine, besides a tiny gash to her eyebrow, but it wasn’t deep.

“Why are you bleeding?” Kaleb questioned my abductor, his eyes flickering to me for a brief second. “Did you do that?”

I nodded, and he hummed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Was that approval?

“Care to share what you planned to do with them?” Kaleb seethed, taking a step forward and tilting his gun to the side along with his head, keeping it aimed at the man’s chest. My abductor huffed, eyeballing the firearm he’d dropped on the muddy ground mid-fall, his fingers twitching. “Don’t even fucking think about it,” snapped Kaleb. The room was silent besides the sounds of heavy breathing and erratic heartbeats.

“He won’t stop.” The dark-haired man next to Brent chuckled as he coughed up blood, collapsing into a crouch and groaning, clutching at his side. “You think killing us will stop him from taking her?”

Kaleb’s back tensed, and he shot me a firm look before turning his attention to the two men again, his smouldering eyes causing my heart rate to soar. He looked menacing—as if he was ready to lodge ten bullets into the guy’s skull for his attempt to snatch me up.

“We may have been unsuccessful, but someone else won’t be. He’ll keep going. He won’t give up.”

“Who?” demanded Brent, but he was ignored, both of the men sucking on their teeth, the noise grating.

They weren’t going to talk beyond what had already been said.

My eyes widened as the man who had stormed me in the maze tilted his shoulder down towards the ground, his arm snaking out to grip his gun, and Brent cursed loudly at him to stop.

I watched in horror as he lifted it, pointing the barrel towards his accomplice, the dark-haired man’s forehead slick with sweat as his eyes bugged out of their sockets.

“We’re as good as dead anyway,” he told his quaking friend, clicking his neck from side to side. “Might as well keep our pride and do it ourselves. Before he does.”

I knew the he that he was talking about wasn’t Kaleb or Brent.

“Don’t shoot!”

I released a gasp as the bald, tattooed man pulled the trigger, cutting off his colleague’s words, the bullet soaring through the air and hitting his accomplice square in the chest. It caused his bleeding body to tumble to the floor, a loud grunt escaping from between his parted lips as he landed in a heap.

Hannah squeezed my arm tightly, a loud cry falling from her mouth as the killer then turned the gun on himself. But before I could see him blast his brains out, Kaleb moved to stand in front of me, blocking my line of vision.

I flinched as the trigger was pulled, my hands shaking, and Kaleb turned around and quickly scanned my body, crouching down in front of Hannah and me, pulling his car keys from his pocket. “Leave the fair. Go and wait in my car. Do not speak to anybody, and keep your hoods up. Lock the car when you’re inside. There are two spare guns in the glove compartment. We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I stared at him, stunned, adrenaline seeping from my pores, my mind completely blank. I couldn’t fathom what we’d just witnessed.

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