Page 58 of Broken Arranged Mate
“Hell-o?”
Someone comes down the set of stairs, stopping outside the door.
Cautiously, a younger voice asks, “Red? That you?”
Veva flexes her hand again, and the voice rings out, “’Course it’s me, you idiot! Locked myself in. Open the fucking door!”
“Sorry,” the voice says, and we wait, holding our collective breath as a key enters the lock on the outside, and the door starts to creak open. “How did you—?”
But Emaline hesitates before dropping the brick like she was supposed to. It lands right on the guy’s shoulder, spinning him to the ground. On second look, the guy is actually a kid—a teen boy, not much older than Veva’s daughter.
He cries out, and Veva stands, holding her hands up and putting him to sleep. The plan was to kill the first man to come through the door, but as we stand together, looking at him, we all collectively, and wordlessly, decide that’s not going to happen.
We move into the hallway, past shelves of tools and supplies. I grab a rusty hammer, feeling its weight in my hand, while the other girls grab their own items.
The door at the top of the staircase is open, letting yellow light spill down the wooden steps. We halt for a moment, listening, but nobody else appears, so I take a breath and start to lead us up to the next room.
I peek out and see three of the guys right there, apparently not even realizing the door is open. I pull back and signal to the others, and Veva moves up next to me, her hands ready.
I see the exhaustion in her face—she’s already used a lot of magic tonight—but she looks ready.
So we turn and charge inside, catching them by surprise.
Sliding in, I head for the guy on the left and swing my hammer right into his knee, the sound of the bone crunching surprisingly visceral and close.
While I’m getting up, the one in the middle turns and grabs Veva, and I go after him. I catch Raegan behind us, her elbow connecting with the nose of the final guy.
So, she does know how to fight.
Kira comes running from the other side of the room, wielding a long, rusty pipe. She brings it down hard on the arm of the man holding on to Veva, and he howls in pain.
“Fuck,” Veva rasps, turning, her eyes wide. “Glad you didn’t miss.”
“I’m a pro with these,” Kira jokes, before turning around and lifting her pipe up again, only to find Raegan standing with blood smeared over her arms, breathing heavily as she looks down at the final guy.
“You guys did a great job,” Emaline says, her voice small, laughing as she looks to the door. “Now, can we go?”
Kira nods and starts for the door, but two things happen in quick succession.
First, the lights go out. And second, four hulking figures burst through the door.
Chapter 33 - Oren
We find the place at the end of a long dirt road. It’s an old, leaning shack with a wooden fence that’s falling down, the metal strips holding it together pooling on the ground like rope. A single telephone pole stands beside it, the wire stretching out and toward town.
“We should cut the power,” Emin says, “Catch those fuckers off guard.”
Dorian nods, and we move around the back of the building, finding the fuse box.
“Aidan, you stay back and cut the power,” Dorian says. “The rest of us will go to the front and go through the door the second you do.”
As we move back around the side of the shack, I smell Ash—in fact, I smell all of them, including my sister, her scent like my own but with a slant to it, slightly different.
We move into position by the door, and I’m flooded with anger and ready to rip someone limb from limb. Dorian glances at Emin and me, and we flash signs to show that we’re ready.
Seconds later, Aidan cuts the power, and we see the inside of the building—which only a second ago was moving, voices coming hushed from inside—go completely dark.
Dorian is first, throwing his shoulder against the door, and we burst inside. I rely on my sense of scent, looking for a strain I can follow through the dark to one of the men, but I don’t catch anything but the smell of the girls, the dank, wet scent of basement and rusted metal.
