Page 111 of Riot's Thorn
She nods, tears brimming in her eyes and her little nose turning pink. “I am, but I don’t care. I just need you.”
“Shit, Little Thorn.” I open my arms, allowing her to wrap around me again. What I give her in return could hardly be considered a touch. My arms and hands barely graze her shoulders—it would kill me to be the cause of more pain.
“Your heart is pounding so hard, I can feel it.”
“I don’t know why,” I say.
“You’re relieved.”
“Good. I thought I was having a heart attack.”
She tips her head back and whispers, “I knew you’d come.”
“Of course I did. You’re mine.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
PARKER
“This is sweet and all, and I don’t mean to overstep, but we have company. Time to bounce,” a young guy I’ve never met says.
Riot releases me and looks over. A group of men is walking toward us. All of them look like workers with helmets and vests, but one of them has a security uniform on.
“You want to come with us or stay? I’m sure those guys will help you,” Riot says.
“We’re coming,” Louisa says.
Riot pulls his scary-looking black gun out and fires. The girls jump and scream, but I just watch as the man with the scar falls to the ground, a hole right through his eyeball. “Still want to come with us?”
Louisa and Anne nod, taking the younger girls’ hands. Riot breaks out into a slow jog, leading us while the younger guy takes the rear. I’m thankful for the adrenaline of being rescued to help lessen the pain of moving. If it takes my breath away right now, I don’t think I’d be able to move without it.
I didn’t doubt Riot would come for me, but I was losing hope it’d happen before the ship left. Knowing one or more of usprobably wouldn’t make it destroyed me, but that worry is gone because he’s here.
“Hey! What are you doing? Get back here!” The men all yell some form of the same thing as we try to escape. I don’t know if they’re part of this or if they just saw us and came to investigate, but I don’t want to find out. I didn’t get rescued to turn around and get caught again.
As hard as I try to keep up, the pain gets to be more than I can tolerate, and I know I’m slowing everyone down. Riot won’t leave me behind, but I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
“Can you jog?” Riot asks, looking over his shoulder at the nearing trouble.
“I can try, but there’s a chance a rib is broken, my hand might be broken, and my ankle is at least sprained,” I say.
“Fuck.” He stops and turns to the other guy. “She can’t run, but you can. Get the girls to the gate and lead them away from us. We’ll come in after they pass so we can take a little more time.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Don’t fuck this up, Prospect.”
“I won’t.” His serious determination is almost cute as he runs alongside the girls, encouraging them to continue. Louisa looks back at me, and I give her a reassuring nod.
Riot and I weave through the maze of containers, pallets, and miscellaneous piles of stuff. It gives us a lot of places to hide, but Riot seems to have a strategy as he leads us to a specific area. He pulls me down to hide behind a tall spool of cable. It’s comically big, as if made for a giant.
“From here, I can see the gate,” he says, crouching and peering over to look.
“Did they make it?” I ask.
He stays focused on watching for a minute. “Yeah, they just made it to Rigger and Lucky.”
“What now?”
