Page 67 of Along for the Ride

As we reach the end of the hall, I glance up and spot a security camera. “Fuck,” I mumble.

“Wh—” Karson looks up. “Oh.” He gives the camera a smile and his middle finger.

Boots pound down the hall, and I can see their owner’s reflections in the fancy fucking walls. Karson and I aim our pistols and take the first couple of men off guard. Their stunned comrades nearly fall over them as they gather their bearings and shift their rifles.

I want one ofthose.

Karson and I work in unison, clearing out the wave of men as we go. Bullets ricochet and shatter walls and vases, sending glass, ceramic, and marble everywhere. I get to one of the men with a rifle and rip it out of his cold hands. Just as I do, an unarmed man grabs Karson from behind—the idiot probably dropped his gun in a panic—and the two go hand to hand.

Karson is so much more muscular and rugged than the suited man in front of him. It’s hardly a fair fight. With his calloused hands clenched, Karson lunges forward with a powerful punch, but the agile suit dodges the blow with a sidestep. Karson growls before retaliating with a swift kick to the man’s knee, causing him to stumble. Then he charges forward, throwing a flurry of punches at his rival.

Someone comes around the corner with a pistol drawn, and I aim the rifle and drop him before turning my attention back to the violent dance in front of me. Karson and I used to fight when we were younger, and I’m pleased to see the level of skill that probably came from going hand to hand with someone as big as me. But this is different from the way we fight. He loves to hurt people, but with each heavy strike, it looks like he’s fighting forher.

“Finish him, brother,” I tell him, and I can’t help but call him brother. At this moment, as he fights for a reason other than his own selfish regard for death, I see myself in him for the first time in a while. He becomes the brother to me that he was before it all. Before I hated him.

Karson nods, sweat dripping down his forehead. He lands blow after blow, his fists raining down with the brutality I know and love. The man tries to fight back, but no one can match Karson when he’s that homicidal. So determined to kill. He throws himself forward, landing on the man as he falls backward. He digs his gloved thumbs into the eye sockets, and his eyeballs eventually deflate with a squelch beneath his weight. He bites his lower lip at the sound, loving it way too fucking much.

We’re definitely related.

That sound would disgust my little wanderer, but it’s a symphony played over the silence of death for me. For Karson, it’s a moan being whispered in his ear. We’re so fucked up.

Karson rises to his feet with a satisfied sigh, and we continue down the hall. I’ve abandoned my pistol for the rifle, and I sweep the rooms with the barrel. There’s a room at the end of the hall, tucked behind dark wooden doors. I take a deep breath before wrapping my hand around the doorknob, because it may be the last breath I take.

As long as I save Leana, I don’t fucking care.

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Leana

Iwake up to the sounds of gunfire. At least, I think that’s what I hear. I take inventory of myself as I try to sit up. I’m sore between my legs, and dry, sticky come clings to my thighs. And my chest. And my cheek. I gag when I remember blips of what they’ve done to me and the way they’ve taken turns with my body.

The guards draw their guns, and now I’m certain I heard gunshots. I get the energy to sit up at the prospect of my men barging through those doors, but I’m absolutely horrified by how I’ll look when they see me.

Dirty. Used. Covered in the come of other men.

The doors whip open and like two weird, blood-covered, psychopathic guardian angels, Gentry and Karson charge in with guns blazing. Bullets buzz around me, and I can’t dodge or do anything to defend my ears from each deafening blast.

“I want George alive!” Gentry screams, his voice straining as if he’s in pain. The blood oozing from the tear in his sleeve confirms my fears. I can hardly see much of anything through the smoke and shattering glass, but I focus on that trail of crimson leaking from him.

“Over here, Gentry!” Karson yells. “Everyone else is down. Get Leana!” It’s the first time I’ve heard him speak my name, and it’s one of the sweetest sounds to grace my ringing ears.

Gentry makes it over to me. After assessing my body, he wipes at the come on my cheek, smearing blood on me in his attempt to clean me. “Oh, wanderer,” he says. His body trembles as an earthquake of emotions ripples through him.

He reaches back and touches the handcuffs, then pulls a small keyring from his pocket. He finds a generic handcuff key on the ring and frees my wrists. I rub at my raw skin the moment I’m free. Gentry removes his shirt and helps me put it on, covering my bare chest. I don’t know where my pants are.

“Where is he?” I yell.

“George is over here,” Karson says from across the room.

“No, where is Mickey?” I ask. I don’t see him among the bodies.

“Who’s Mickey?” Gentry asks, clearly confused by how I could be on a first name basis with any of these fuckers.

My eyes narrow. “My ex, the one who put the bruises on me. He knows George. Works with him. Was here. He’s the one who told George I was with you. It was never Karson.”

“Told you!” Karson shouts from his side of the room before he sends a bullet through the head of a still-moving body.

A look of relief passes across Gentry’s face before he turns back to me. “What does he look like?”

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