Page 98 of Pretty Lethal
I close my eyes and grit my teeth against the clawing panic, shuffling through my thoughts until Wilder’s voice washes over me.
Don’t panic. We’ll come for you. Everything will be fine.
I have no idea how the hell they’re going to come for me or if they’ll even make it in time, but his words become a mantra in my head, one I cling to with every fiber of my being as my body temperature begins to drop and I hear dirt hit the wooden lid above me.
Chapter31
HAWK
“EMILIA!” I scream as the door slams shut behind her.Where the fuck are they taking her?!I buck against the firm hand pressed between my shoulder blades, snarling venomously. “Get off me before I rip your fucking hands off.”
Kai spurts similar expletives and threats before Carrie’s roboticKingvoice echoes through the chamber, halting our measly attempts to get free. I can’t believe this shit is happening again. For a second time, I find myself unable to get to Emilia’s defense, and even worse, Kai and Wilder are trapped too.
Through the haze of panic, I try to determine why they separated us. It can’t be for anything good, given what they did to Emilia the last time they got their hands on her; I’m terrified of what they’ll do now. Last time was a warning, but we’re beyond warnings now. Wilder basically told his psychotic mom where to go, and whatever is happening now is the consequence of that.
“It kills me that it has to be this way,” Carrie says, her robotic voice sounding creepy as hell.
From my position, with my cheek pressed against the wall, I can only see her and Wilder out of the corner of my eye. “But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”
“I’m going to killyou,” Wilder snarls murderously.
Carrie laughs, the voice manipulator making the sound come out demonic and otherworldly. Within the confines of the stone chamber, it feels so far removed from real life that I can’t figure out whether to laugh or if I should be terrified.
“No, my boy, you’re going to killforme.”
Dismissing Wilder, she turns to Robbie and waves her hand in our direction. “They’re disposable. Make sure Wilder watches every moment. I don’t want him to miss any of it.”
Any of what? What the hell is she planning?!
With the swish of her cloak, she slips from the room, taking several hooded figures with her and leaving Robbie and one cloak, each pinning me and Kai to the stone.
“Seriously, Robbie?” Wilder begins. “You’re just going to be her puppet?”
“You could never understand what we are, what we have,” Robbie responds apathetically, not in the least perturbed by Wilder’s undermining of his twisted relationship with Carrie.
He slides a gun from beneath his robes, cocking it and pointing it directly at Kai.
“No!” I roar, bucking furiously, but with my hands and feet bound, the man behind me effortlessly shoves me back against the wall, and my cheek smacks off the sharp stone. Ignoring the pain slicing across my face, I twist my neck until I can see Kai. He’s pinned to the floor with a cloak sitting on top of him. Lifting his head, he stares directly at Wilder, appearing oblivious to the gun pointed at the top of his head.
I sense some silent communication between them a second before Wilder launches himself at Robbie. The gun in Robbie’s hand goes off, and I lose track of whether it did any damage as Kai does some maneuver that flips him, so he’s sitting astride the cloak.
While the cloak holding me is distracted, I shift my hands until I find what I’m searching for. Unable to believe what I’m about to do, I grasp a hold of his junk and twist. He emits a high-pitched shriek, and I throw my head back, the top connecting with the bridge of his nose.
Pain radiates from the back of my skull, exacerbating the dull throb from the car accident, but I ignore it as I spin and drive my shoulder into his abdomen, taking both of us to the ground. I land on top of him with a grunt, and using my head as a battering ram, I drive my forehead into his face.
Black spots appear in my vision as pain explodes, but I push past all of it as I hurriedly use my shoulder’s to get back on my feet. Uncaring that I probably look like an idiot on a pogo stick, I jump on top of his abdomen, slamming my feet into the soft belly of his flesh with all my strength.
With an oomph, he begins to curl into the fetal position, and I drop down onto my side with my arm wedged across his windpipe as I use my body weight to choke him out. I still can’t see his face from beneath the hood as I fight to stay on top of him while he bucks and writhes, his hands clawing at my arm and back until he finally passes the fuck out.
When he falls still beneath me, I roll off him, lying on my back on the cold floor, breathing heavily as I try to think past the splitting headache pulsating through my skull, making my stomach roil.
A shadow appears above me, and I have to blink several times before Kai’s broad frame comes into focus. His lips move, but I can’t hear what he’s saying over the blood pounding in my head. After a second, he shakes his head and leans down to tug on the restraints around my wrist.
After a second, they fall away, and I bring my hands up in a daze to rub at the wrists.
“Hawk, come on, man. We need to get to Emilia.”
Blinking through the stars still dancing in front of me, I focus on Kai as he helps me into a sitting position.Fuck, my head is killing me.I glance down at the small penknife in his hand.
