Page 43 of Savage Hero

I have to wash it down with orange soda or risk choking.

I’m itching to take out my phone and send a text to Athena, or even try to call her, but Savage was explicit about what would happen if I tried.

As in: I would die.

If not by Bogota’s hands, then by his own. And, to hear him tell it, he’d enjoy every second of it.

The wait stretches on and on. My fries are done, and I have no choice but to dive into the burger. It’s a hot mess—layers of bacon and cheese and egg with some amazing sauce drizzled over everything—but I eat on automatic. So much so, I almost bite into a tomato before I remember to check the burger and remove them.

Worst topping you can ever put on a fucking burger, but I can never remember to ask for no tomatoes. Go figure, right?

It happens halfway through my burger, just as I’m reaching for my soda. My phone rings, and it’s not my usual ringtone. My heart leaps into my throat, and it takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to bolt.

Instead, I bend over and re-tie my shoelaces.

The next few minutes are the longest of my entire life, and yet everything happens so fast it’s like I’m on one of those amusement rides where eighty-percent of the people throw up afterward.

I knowIdid.

A single shot sounds. I jump up and start running. At first, I’m headed for the street, but then I veer off and make a mad dash for the alley behind the food truck.

Savage laid it all out for me, but he couldn’t have predicted the amount of rubbish lying in that alley.

It’s dark, damp, and smells like several small furry things died in the shadows, their decomposing corpses still lying there all maggoty and stiff. I get about halfway before my foot hits a random brick half-hidden by a forlorn sheet of newspaper that got lost in the alley.

I go flying, land on hands and knees, and scrape the fuck out of both. My jeans are torn, my hands ripped open in more than one place. But I don’t feel the pain, because all I can think about, all I can focus on right then are the footsteps thundering behind me.

If it was Savage, he’d have called out my name.

But there’s no sound except thethud-thud-thudof approaching death.

I scramble up with a whimper trapped in my too-tight throat, and somehow get my legs under me. They churn, my lungs catch fire, but I’m not moving fast enough.

There’s a door near the end of the alleyway. Metal, paint peeling, dented. I slam into it, rattle the handle.

It doesn’t open.

I yell in frustration, rearing back and kicking at the metal. It barely shakes.

Thud-thud…thud.

“Did you forget about the key?” Savage rasps.

My heart caves in. I sag, but he grabs the back of my jacket and hauls me up again. “Jesus fucking Christ!” I yell. “You couldn’t have told me it was you barreling after me back there?” I punch his side, but my arm’s shaking so much it’s no surprise he doesn’t even acknowledge the blow.

Savage shoulders me aside and hurriedly unlocks the door. He swings it open and shoves me inside, following right behind me.

I could be in a coffin, already six feet under, that’s how black it is once he shuts the door. I reach out blindly, trying to shuffle forward, knowing there’s no time to be prissy about things like bashing my toes into unseen objects, but then Savage comes past and grabs my wrist.

We move fast, weaving through what I can only assume are boxes and crates from the textures my fingers encounter.

Behind us, the metal door we came through bursts open. A swathe of light cuts through the shadows. I look back in time to see the silhouettes of several men slip through the open doorway.

One of them shouts.

Another shoots.

“Fuck!” Savage grates. His grip around my wrist tightens to the point of pain. He surges forward, dragging me behind him. I slam into boxes and crates, grazing my knees and shins, slamming my thigh into the corner of something hard and metal.

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