Page 69 of Burn Like An Angel

The metallic click of a gun causes my head to snap back up. Elon has released his weapon and holds it aimed at me. His lascivious smile makes his intentions crystal clear.

“I’m under no obligation to bring you back alive,” he gloats. “Though I’m sure the boss will be disappointed that he won’t get the chance to deal with you himself.”

Looking back and forth, my options are shitty. Fall and pray that Lennox catches me. Stay and get shot. Surrender to Elon and his sycophants. Karma is truly kicking me in the ass with these choices.

“Come on, Rip,” Elon cajoles. “You know we will always find you, no matter where you run.”

“Good luck with that, asshole!”

“You’re a part of this. The world wants your head too.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Lennox clamours.

It’s too late to stop the seed of doubt from blooming. We may be jumping from the frying pan into the flames. The outside world holds no more safety than Harrowdean’s crumbling ruins.

I’m their enemy too. Society will never understand the horrors we’ve endured. We don’t fit into their cookie-cutterreality. Staying here to scream our innocence until we’re quietly killed isn’t happening, though.

“You’re right!” I reposition myself, legs spread apart and shoulders squared. “I’ll be labelled as a monster when the truth comes out. The world will burn me right alongside the corporation.”

My grip on the chain-links loosens.

“But the least I can do is destroy the evil I’ve enabled before that day comes. I can atone.”

Trees, clouds and four shocked faces become a fast-moving blur. I’m airborne. Free-falling. The ground rushes up to meet me, approaching in rapid flash frames.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The feel of a bullet whooshing past me registers in drunken slow motion. Rushing air. Loud popping. Something else sails past me. But the third and final bullet doesn’t miss.

I don’t process the fierce bite of being shot at first. Not until the burning sensation becomes a deep, excruciating laser beam carving into my flesh.

The thin air doesn’t cushion my fall.

Something else does.

Our bodies audibly smack together. Faintly, I hear someone bellow loudly in pain as we both crumple. I should feel the impact more, but all that exists is the radiating agony in my inflamed thigh.

More vision-blurring pain slams into me as I’m jostled in a pair of thick arms, the muscular cushion beneath me attempting to shift. Crackling bonfires and woodsy smoke filter into my nostrils.

Lennox.

“Fuck,” he wheezes. “That hurt.”

Yelling voices feed back in. We need to move, but for the life of me, I can’t lift a single limb. Not with my body succumbing toweakness. I’m barely able to hold my eyelids open as adrenaline pours out of me.

“Xan! Help us!”

Reality keeps flashing in and out. Lennox’s body trapped beneath me shakes, attempting to wrestle his way up with the new bruises I’ve given him. When the world reappears, I feel myself being lifted.

“Give her to me.”

“No.” Lennox’s tone is strained. “I’m carrying her.”

“Nox—”

“Let’s move!”

More darkness. An inky pond pulling me into its all-consuming depths. Light eventually filters back in, and this time, I can tell we’re running fast.

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