Page 42 of EverGreene
“Having issues, little bird?” V stopped behind me, looking over his shoulder.
“When am I not having issues?” I took a step down another dilapidated stair, nearly losing my balance again. “I’ll just take off my shoes and?—”
“Like hell you will.”
And just like that, one moment I was barely standing on my own two feet, and the next, I was being manhandled by a muscled, masked, tatted, sex god who had thrown me over his shoulder like the weight of my body was nothing more than a joke to him as he hauled ass down the stairs without breaking his stride.
“There’s broken glass all over. I don’t need you cutting your foot open. Pain would be more than happy to stitch you up, but he wouldn’t be gentle about it.”
“With a name like Pain, that’s a hard pass on letting him touch me at all.”
“According to him, women like a little Pain.”
“Cute. I’m more of a fan of men who follow me around and peer through my windows at night to watch me sleep, personally.”
“I’ve never once peered through your window to watch you sleep.”
“Bet you’ve thought about it, though.”
The silence from him told me I was right.
“Finally,” a male voice I didn’t recognize spoke when V reached the bottom of the stairs. I raised my head to look over his shoulder, catching sight of his three teammates, whom I had watched fight earlier in the night.
“Oh. My. God,” Katy said under her breath in awe. “Ever, I think we were asphyxiated between those burly men up there, after all. Because this has got to be heaven. We’re in heaven with four masked men, right? And look, it divides up evenly, not that I’m opposed to sharing, if you know what I mean.”
“Sorry, but this was what I was up against up there,” V answered whichever man had called him out.
“Why are you talking like that?” the man in the green mask asked.
“I know why he’s talking like that.” A familiar voice chimed in. “Hey, Ever. Nice to see you again.”
Katy glanced up at me. “Well, I guess we know who you two are.”
“Hi, Cole. Lovely to see you again. The security system is still working great. Top-notch job.”
“We don’t have time to play catch-up right now.” The man in the green mask was all business and clearly the leader of the group. Frustrated, he shoved his body against the door, inviting a gust of ice-cold air to rush inside. “Go!”
The men motioned for Katy to exit first, with V following behind her, and then the rest of them filing in behind us.
“I can walk, you know,” I said, annoyed about being slung over V’s shoulder like he had clubbed me over the head and was taking me back to his cave.
“Really? Because I’ve seen you walk before, and it isn’t pretty.”
“Just put me down!”
“Negative. We’re going to be sprinting through those woods ahead of us. You’ll never make it in those heels you have on.”
“She wouldn’t make it in regular shoes, either,” Katy called back, eliciting a chuckle from V.
“Glad I’m such a source of entertainment for the both of you.”
We ran across a short expanse of asphalt, headed to the trees shrouded in darkness behind the building as the commotion from the front of the building escalated. I hated the dark, loathed this time of year when daylight was scarce, but I had to admit that it had our back now, shrouding the six of us under a blanket of near invisibility.
“Run, run, run,” Mr. Green Mask commanded as we tore off toward the tree line, jumping into the woods as soon as we reached the bare pillars of bark. It may already be dark outside, but factor in the woods, and it was positively pitch black. V was right, I would have one-hundred percent killed myself trying to run through the trees.
“Keep going west about a quarter mile, and we’ll reach the parking lot where my van is parked.” I could barely make out green mask’s form in the woods now, even as he and the other men ran behind us.
“Holy shit, Ever,” Katy said, her breathing having become heavier from more than just the added cardio. “We’re beingchased by four masked men through the woods. It’s too bad we’re also running from the cops, or else I would be recording this to put up on TikTok right now.”
