Page 83 of Wolf

Lamb lifted his head and said the two words I knew would bring everything crashing downaroundme.

“She’sdead.”

Chapter Thirty

Anna

Dead.

The foreign man hit the ground, my skin and hair getting covered in the splatter of blood and other juices as his head shot back, a bullet hole perfectly between the eyes, Jax’s gun raised just over myshoulder.

As his body hit the floor, there was a brief moment of silence that took overeverything.

Then, all hell brokeloose.

Black Angels appeared from hiding spots all over, firing off round after round as the girls screamed and leaped for cover. Jax swore violently beside me, leaping out into the fray as Mint and Pretty jumped up from the ground, pulling out guns hidden under the floorboards and under the table and firing off round after round at each unfamiliar face turningonus.

Mallory screamed, and I lunged for her, my body covering hers as we rolled behind one of the couches, my gun clattering on the wood as it slipped from my grasp. Her chest heaved over and over as she floundered beneath my body. I pinned her to the floor, my hand fumbling for the gun as it slipped on my blood-soakedskin.

“Fuck!” I hissed as Mallory’s nail dug into my skin in fear as I helped pushed her up against one of the back of the couches, a bullet bouncing off close tomyhead.

Mallory’s eyes went wide, and I could only think of the memories this was bringing back for her, but I couldn’t attend to my own psychological state, never mind hers, as all I could think about wassurvival.

I peered over the edge of the couch, hoping to spot a second redhead, but ducked straight back down as cotton burst from the cushion, the bullet almost breaking through the interior wooden frame, the sound ringing in my ears. What I had seen was a girl lying on the floor, and I immediately recognized her asSweets.

I didn’t waste a second look to confirm that she was dead. There was no need to with her brains splattered across thefloor.

“Fuck!” I heard Jax yell from behind the table he had tipped onto its side as he bashed his gun into the woodenfloorboards.

“Jax!” I yelled, catching his eye as he turned, and I slid my gun across the floor toward him. He gave me a grateful nod, discarding his own jammed gun, and began firing off shots into the other side of the room, followed by the sounds of bodies dropping down on thefloor.

Their side held the doorway. I counted women hidden and tucked away. I could see Baby next to Pretty, her body covering Georgia and Ember as they both shook with silent tears, their hands covering their ears, flinching with each gunshot. Baby remained impassive as she leaned out and around the tipped-over pool table, clocking where enemies lay, so Pretty could get them without wasting thebullets.

I thanked God the clubhouse was practically empty. After the brothers had headed out to make the deal, anybody not club had left straight away, leaving only the club girls and the oldladies.

I tried to reach for my knife in my boot, but from my awkward position on top of Mallory, my arms bracketing her in as I kept her close against the back of the couch where I knew a thick wooden panel was hidden inside, I couldn’treachit.

“Mallory,” I said, trying to rouse her brown eyes pinned straight ahead, in this case, at my chest as she fell into her shell-shocked world. “Fuck!” I kept my arm compact, but with all the force I could muster, I slapped her hard acrosstheface.

She let out a yelp, distracting Jax for a second before he turned back to the bullets flying his way. But my hit did the trick as Mallory’s brown eyes leaped uptomine.

“Mallory,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady and calm, but the second I heard the creak of the floorboard so close it overrode the sound of the gunfire going off all around me, urgency overtook everything. “Knife. Boot.Now!” I screeched, and Mallory lunged for my boot, her finger hooking into the side of it andpulling.

I heard it clatter against the floor just as I saw the pair of dark eyes leap from the side of thecouch.

Mallory let out a screech as a gun pointed at her head, but I wasfaster.

I leaped low against his side, my compact force sending the man stumbling away from us, the gun going off into the ceiling, and both our bodies colliding with the wall. I grunted in pain, my hand and leg bursting with a excrusiating heat as my adrenaline couldn’t beat it down anylonger.

The man beside me didn’t stay down for long, however, as his hands wrapped around my shoulders and he rolled as he shoved me beneath him. His hands went around my small throat, their huge, meaty paws closing tight around my esophagus, stopping oxygen from reachingmyhead.

Dark stars rippled at the corners of my vision as I reached with my nails to gouge the man’s eyes out, but my arms couldn’t reach, and the panic set in as my sight got darker and darker and the floor rockedbeneathme.

I patted my hand around for my knife, but fuck, it might as well not have fucking existed, because I couldn’t find it. My limbs grew heavier and heavier, my movements weaker andweaker.

It was only in the last few seconds that I felt the cool touch of metal, and for the life of me, I didn’t know how I moved. How I managed to lift my arm from the ground. How I managed to find the strength to swing itforward.

I breathed first and foremost before I felt the hot wash of thick blood pour over my chest and stomach as I saw the deep gouge sliced across the man’s jugular. Pints and pints of the stuff washed over my rippling chest as I struggled to take in oxygen without drowning in the man’s blood. My eyes closed on instinct, burning as the liquid splashed into them, as the body collapsed down in a heap on top of me, his huge weight crushing mysmallbody.

---