Page 169 of The Reluctant Hero

Ace is staring at his truck with his mouth gaping.

“Amanda,” Mikael says softly and runs his fingertips over the hood of the SUV.

“Amandadid this?” Cade’s disbelief matches mine.

“Take a look,” Mikael backs away, shaking his head and calls for a ride to pick us up.

I step closer, my shoes crunching over broken glass and metal. There’s a message on the hood that’s scratched in with enough force that the sheet of metal is bent. The words are broken apart with dents and holes all around them.

“Have I hit three million yet?” My voice chokes over the question as I read it.

“Yeah, I see begging for forgiveness going really well,” Cade glares at me.

“We find her, we keep her,” Ace snaps. “Nothin’ else matters.”

I don’t think it will be that easy anymore. The thought is terrifying.

36

Ronald

Amanda

South didn’t hesitate to run after him. No pause for thought, just a release the hounds attack mode activated.

I’m left gaping as she disappears in the crowd. My mind is scrabbling to catch up to what happened. On a sidewalk in plain view of everyone. But no one has turned to find out what the ruckus was. They seem completely oblivious to the fact that someone just tried to shove me into oncoming traffic.

My feet turn in a daze, and I take a single step.

“Manda!”

The roared use of my name makes me turn back in surprise. I recognize the voice, but my body instantly reacts even as my brain screams in protest.

There’s a pristine white SUV parked at the curb with a driver inside. And the Matthias group standing on the sidewalk. Blake wasn’t lying about having a meeting with them after all. Now, my heart is protesting, too.

My stomach drops when my eyes meet Ace’s. The anger there drops into a pained kind of surprise when he sees my face. His head starts shaking as if he’s in denial about something. Mikael stops mid-step toward me, and his lips part in surprise. Cade’s face pales, and Gabriel. The only expression of emotion onhisface is a widening of his eyes.

I don’t want to look at any of them. As much as I want to beat the shit out of them, I know I’m not ready. Especially with all of them together. They’re still down Jake, though.

Ace’s expression fills with rage. The look makes me shift my grip on the baton, yanking it up so my hand goes to the tape in the center. He’s fast. Coming toward me with clenched fists and gnashing teeth.

I don’t fucking think so.

I twirl the baton into a backhand flip. Once my hand lands closer to the tip I have the grim pleasure of watching Ace’s eyes widen before I swing it up in an arc headed for his chin. He lurches back just in time to land on Mikael with enough force to knock them both back several steps. I release it into a spin that rises into the air and moves out of my sight behind me.

I take the opportunity to grab the first person I see when I spin and pull them into their path. I hear a thud and several people falling to the pavement behind me. People have parted ahead of me, trying to figure out where the baton is going to land. I start running through the opening, catching it as it comes down and breaking into a sprint.

“Wait!” Mikael calls after me as if I’m going to listen to the barked tone. That used to happen. Not anymore.

The cold rage snaps up and adds some speed to my limbs. I shove and pull people angrily, getting a lot of curses tossed my way. I hook the end of the baton into as much debris to knock over as I can. A trash can overfilled with cups. A magazine rack. Anything to make bumps in the road to slow them down.

That doom sense is still humming. I’m listening with everything in me. They’re back there. I don’t need to look.

I stay on crowded streets, even though it slows me. It slows them, too, because every person I knock into becomes angry over my audacity and begins to clutter the sidewalk.

A swollen crowd of people are walking toward me without paying attention. I pull the baton into my chest and duckdown to bob and weave through them, trying not to make myself noticeable.

No matter how far I get, I don’t see South. Does she have supersonic speed, too?

---