Page 72 of War

We creep down the hallway hosting more bedrooms, stilling when Callan holds up a fist.The shuffling of booted feet scratches at my ears.My heart hammers in my chest when we come across a Devil stalking the corridor.Tiptoeing up behind him, Callan grabs a fistful of his hair and rips his head back, dragging a blade across his throat.Cherry red splatters the wall.

Lowering him to the floor, Callan steps over his body and signals for us to continue with a crook of his finger.Chills zap through my veins when the light catches the dead man’s wide eyes.Kenny.He was a prospect, barely twenty years old.

Shouts and screams bounce off the walls.The blonde triplets come bounding down the hallway naked with terror written on their panicked faces.“Get behind the bar.Kitty’s there,” I rush out.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

One flies forward like she was punched in the back, plunging into me and knocking me against the wall.Her body jerks as more bullets fire into her.Air whooshes out of my lungs, the world tilting on its axis.It’s all so loud.So vivid.So real.My mind struggles to find focus.

I push her off me, and her body flops to my feet, bullet holes peppered across her back.

Callan’s nowhere.Jericho is lying on the floor, holding his shoulder.

“No.Where did Callan go?”I hunch down, tearing his hand away to check the wound.He’ll live.

“Followed the fucker who shot me.”He points to a room.

I stand, rounding the lip of the door.The world falls into slow motion, and my stomach vaults.I take a couple steps into Daddy’s room.Callan’s menacing form lurches over a Devil whose hands are raised in surrender.Daddy’s naked body is half hanging out of his bed, slathered in red liquid and staring back at me.Stumbling over to him, I push him onto his back, fire scalding my eyes as I trace over the bullet holes.There are too many to count.

“Cowards,” I grit out, my breath catching.Rage throbs through me.Daddy’s blood seeps through my fingers, filling the space between them, clogging beneath my nails.“You are fucking cowards.”My voice builds with momentum.Steady, determined strides carry me to the man shrinking under Callan.Without mercy or regret, I fire a bullet into his forehead and his raised arms fall like stones beside him.“They attacked at night while most of us were sleeping.And she let them in,” I seethe.

“She’ll pay for that with her life.”Callan clenches his jaw.

“They all will,” I add, marching to the door, the wind knocking out of me when I collide with Tyler.

“Hello, Princess.”His voice scrapes against my mind like rusty nails.Grabbing my wrist before I can raise my gun, he squeezes against the raw wounds beneath the dressings.My fingers flex without permission, and my gun clanks against the floor.

Two Devils pile into Daddy’s room, gunfire ringing out, grunts and crashing sounds clashing as Tyler drags me away.

Callan.

Cool air washes over my skin as Tyler kicks the latch on a fire exit door spilling out at the back of the compound.He throws me to the asphalt, and I scurry a few feet away from him.I drag in sharp gasps of air, shock solidifying my bones.

“Looks like I did a number on you, baby.”He rolls his neck.“You did one on me too.”Lifting his shirt, dark bruises spread like spilled ink over his ribs.“Hurts like a motherfucker.”

He stands hauntingly above me.The moon slices through a scattering of condensed clouds, highlighting him in a silver halo.It’s not fitting for the Devil before me.

The wind picks up my hair and whips the strands violently around my face.Blood congeals, sticky like tar on my hands.Pain expands through my body like the tide rushing in.The savage black sky falls on me, wrapping me in its darkness.

“There’s nowhere to go from here, Ty.”I swallow down the lump growing in my throat.

“Hell is where I’m going, Princess.And you’re coming with me.”

The door swings back open and Monster, Grease, and Callan step into the finality of my nightmare.My body, pulled by his presence, sways toward Callan.I don’t want him to watch me die.

More brothers file out, joining us.

A Devil amongst Kingsl.

A fist twists in my hair, dragging me backward.“I’ll shoot her,” Tyler cautions.“Stay fucking back.”

Callan’s blood-soaked chest heaves, one fist clenched around the hilt of his blade, the other on the handle of my gun.“You know you’re not walking out of here,” Callan warns him.

“I do.”Tyler grins, dropping his gaze down on me, pushing the gun barrel against my skull.

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