Page 59 of The Wrong Drive-
I grab the quilt I keep in my truck and unfold it once, placing it over the concrete rail of the parking garage.Could someone see me up here? This is public. Why is campus so dead? How does Bradford get this kind of clearance?
I inhale and exhale slowly, steadying my heart rate as I ready myself. I need to focus. I need to calm down.
My mind drifts to the many times I would watch Em sleep when she was at the cabin. Somehow, even in the cold night, I can’t stop thinking of the way her chest would rise and fall so steadily, despite the fucking hell I was putting her through.
I rack a round in the chamber, and suddenly, the thoughts of Emersyn fade. Gunner whines from the passenger seat, and I clear my throat, my heart palpitating in my chest.
Keep it together, Martin. Remember the mission.
I steady my rifle, whispering to her as if she can hear me. “Let’s do this.”
After a few dull minutes, three men come walking out of a building, heading toward a black Tahoe in the parking lot. I watch through my scope, and then freeze.
Wait a minute.
“Uh,” I take a moment to hit my mic, my ungloved finger now cold. “Bradford, we have a problem. There’s a girl walking with them.”
“Is shewiththem? Or just a passerby?”
“Hard to tell,” I watch the blonde-headed woman through my scope, trying to gauge the way she’s interacting with the three men. She seems distant.
Until she’s not.
Oh fuck.My heart jumps as one of the men reaches for her backpack.Maybe he’s going to carry it for her?
I watch as the guy rips it away from her, and she falls, her ass hitting the concrete so hard even I wince. “I think they’re not friendly. He’s taking the bag by force.”
“Hold your fire,” Bradford commands. “Let’s see how it plays out.”
I don’t say anything as I watch the girl stand to her feet, and then make a beeline for a sedan parked near the Tahoe. The expressions on the three men come into focus, and they appear amused. The one who has her backpack takes off after her.
And somehow, I doubt he’s going to just return it.
The guy tosses the bag at the woman’s feet, and then reaches for her ass. She slaps his hand away, but the guy keeps encroaching, now pinning her against the car.
“Fuck, let’s just do this another night,” Bradford mutters. “I don’t have time for this bullshit. I don’t know who that girl is.”
“Okay, well?—”
I’m cut off by a blood curdling scream, the woman’s voice so piercing that it echoes through the stillness of the night. Everything in my body goes rigid. I peer through the scope.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“His hands are on her throat,” I say, my voice strained. I feel my own throat constrict as I watch the violence play out, and an entirely new sort of rage builds in my chest.
I can’t stand the sight of this.
And the closer I look, the more I picture someone I love—someone likeEm—as the victim of the asshole’s hands. My ears start to ring, as I remember the fear in Emersyn’s eyes. When she looked at me.
Eliminate the threat.
“Oh shit,” Bradford grumbles, his calmness almost eerie. “Maybe I can drive by and they’ll let her go. Either way, it’s time to call it a nigh?—”
My first round cuts Bradford off, slicing through the throat of one of the other two men standing ten feet away from the sedan. My breath slows as I keep working through it, firing on the exhale as I take out the other man.
And then it hits me.
Bradford’s saying something?
