Page 54 of Too Lethal to Love

Kane would not be number four if she had anything to say about it.

Kane screamed the command in his brain to activate himself into phase two. As the sting dashed from his neck down his leg, he squeezed Beth’s hand and pulled her to the side of the house that wasn’t consumed by fire yet.

“Kane, do you copy?”

Ryan’s voice roared in Kane’s ears.“Copy.”

“Incoming hostiles from the east and west.”

“How many?”

“One in a vehicle in the front. Six approaching the house.Three from each side. They arrived in a van seconds after the explosion.”

“Copy.”The police and fire department would be here any minute. The hostiles’ best strategy would be to draw them out and grab Beth before the authorities arrived, which meant they were coming in full force with the intent to kill.

You can’t be number four.

He tuned out the memory of Beth’s desperate voice and surveyed the surroundings. There was nowhere to take cover in the barren backyard except for a shed on the edge of the cornfield. Sprinting to that was too risky.

That only left one choice.

Engage.

“Three hostiles approaching from each side of the house.” He pointed to the gun in Beth’s hand as he yelled over the flames. “Stay behind me and shoot at the first one you see, but don’t move from your position.”

“Where’s your gun? Why do we only haveonegun?”

“Trust me and listen like your life depends on it because it does.” He pushed her into a crouch and leveled her with a look that said, “Stay here.”

She nodded at the silent command. The fear in her eyes stamped itself into his mind. Her trust branded his heart.

“They’re rounding the house through the flames on the east side,”Ryan said.

Kane channeled enough intensity to blow up another truck into his silent command.

Fire. Fire. Fire.

V-Strikes meant to kill speared through the flames. One hostile came into sight on the outskirts of the inferno. Kane hit him with a strike to the heart. The hostile’s gun went off and the shot went wide.

“Hostiles rounding the corner on the west.”

Another shot sounded behind him.He whirled to Beth to shove her to the ground. Instead, he whispered her name in awe and fear as he watched her raise the gun and hit a burly figure square in the chest.

Shoving her toward the house, he stepped into the open. He ignored her shout to get back as he envisioned the destruction he aimed to rain down. With a growl, he fired a V-Strike toward a hostile on the east side. The target fell to his knees. A bullet from Beth had him crumpling face-first into the grass.

“Hostiles on your six,”Ryan said.

Without turning around, Kane fired V-Strikes from the back of his thighs. Beth’s bullets punctuated his efforts as more V-Strikes streamed from the front of his calves toward another hostile in his sight line. A moment later, a quick scan assured all reported threats were neutralized, at least for the time being.

“All clear,” Ryan said.

Adrenaline galloped through him as he pulled Beth from where she’d taken cover behind a rusty garbage bin. Sirens wailed in the distance.

“SUV is fleeing. Nic is minutes out. He’ll meet you at the road on the far side of the cornfield.”

Kane acknowledged Ryan as he grabbed Beth’s hand and took off. As he pulled her into the barren field, snow poured down in a sheet of white. She cried out as she stumbled on the prickly ground. He scooped her into his arms and took off in a run.

As he crunched through cornstalk remnants, one thought kept running through his mind.

---