Page 42 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

“I can’t shoot them! You’re the trained person here. I’m just a girl holding a gun because you shoved it in my hands!”

He yanked me around a corner and stood behind me. “Alright, here’s what you do. Hold up your gun.”

“Are you crazy?” I shouted.

“Just do it. There’s nothing like shooting for the first time, so enjoy it.”

“I don’t want—”

He pressed his finger to my lips and gave me a stern look. “Are you a fighter or not?”

I wasn’t sure, but this wasn’t the time to argue about it.

“You are, I know you are. So, turn around and hold up your gun.”

I was shaking badly, but I did as he said, holding up my gun as I hid most of my body behind the wall.

“Look down the length of the barrel. Aim for the belly. It’s the biggest target.” He placed his hand on mine, adjusting my grip and then holding me steady. “It’s you or them,” he whispered in my ear.

I could feel the panic slowly receding as they spotted me and took aim. It was now or never. I slipped my finger over the trigger and fired. The recoil was more than I was expecting and I nearly fell into Fox. He pulled me to the side and fired off shots of his own while I stared down at the gun and tried my best not to lose my shit.

Then he pulled me to my feet and smiled at me. “I’m proud of you. You did good.”

“Did I hit them?”

“Hell no. Not even close. I think you might have killed the smoke alarm, though. We’ll work on it more once we break out of this joint.”

Then he grabbed me by the arm and we took off running again.

15

CASH

We finally foundthe control room with Rae inside searching through the camera feeds. “I was hoping Eva was with you,” I said, storming up to the wall of screens to search for her.

“Fox has her. He had her fire a gun.”

“He what?” I asked, my head whipping around.

“Yeah, she totally missed, but it’s good for her.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, it’s Fox. Do you really want him teaching her?”

I did not. In fact, I wanted him as far away from her as possible. He was psychotic on the best of days. That’s why we kept him locked away in training.

“He’s headed with her to the tunnel on level five.”

I looked at the screen where she was pointing. They had several escape routes from this place, and the only reason he knew where to go was because of Dash. “It looks like Dash came through after all.”

She snorted, scrolling through more footage. “Sure, if you call a half hour late coming through.”

The competition between them was like a sibling rivalry. It would never end, and with every challenge, the stakes got higher. “What about the rest of the teams?”

“IRIS went a little crazy,” she said, trying to hide a smile.

“When doesn’t he? What did he do?”

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