Page 41 of Beautiful Chaos
Oakley smiles at me as he grips my free hand.
“What?” I ask while tracking the shooter. He’s in the shadows, trying to climb out of the side window. Sucker.I can see in the dark.
I take aim, but a red dot paints his back, and he turns to ash before I can get off a shot. I look over, and Maverick is pumping his fist.
Good for him.
Oakley chuckles. “I can barely make out your face, but I’ve never seen you this…happy.”
“Idid say”—I can’t help my smile—“murder is totally my happy place.”
I take out a lady who thinks she’s being sneaky by climbing out the back way.Please.
She’s another Epsteiner down. They’ve gotta be in the single digits by now. I’d love to help us get the full set.
Oakley is still gripping my hand, but he’s gone quiet. I turn to check on him, but I can’t read the expression on his face.
“You okay?” I ask, patting my tactical vest for an emesis bag.You’d be surprised how many times I’ve had to offer one up. “There’s no shame in puking your first time.”
I press the bag into his hand, just as another asshole pushes the headless body of his friend into the ditch and tries to restart the SUV.
The other Wildlings are in a fight with the occupants of a second, equally large SUV, so I hop up and race toward the dumbass who doesn’t realize he’s actually stuck in that ditch.
“Be right back,” I toss over my shoulder.
The guy, who is smarter than he looks, abandons the vehicle right as I pull the trigger, making me miss my shot. Before I can recalibrate, he picks up something from the ground and blindly throws it at me.
I dodge the flying object—a fist-sized rock, for fuck’s sake—but it hits my pistol, killing it dead. These are made of a lighter polymer, something that can be broken and easily discarded if necessary. Great for cleanup, terrible in the middle of a firefight.
I’ll make sure to add that to my post-op report.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve still got a bad guy to kill.
In the meantime, someone—probably Hedy—directs the Wimberley vehicle’s headlights toward the fight. Thank Christ for sunglasses. Those high beams arepowerful.
I close the distance between me and the rock-throwing asshole. He tries to come at me with a haymaker. I dodge and break a few of his ribs as payback. He spits a gob of blood at me, which I also dodge before breaking his nose. He swings at me again, a glancing blow that knocks off my sunglasses.
The bright LED headlights sear my brain. Frustrated and worried about my cousins dealing with those assholes in the second truck, I let out a roar and rip out the guy’s throat.
Warm blood hits my face, andhell yeah.
I like the efficiency of the newer pistols, I do. But there’snothinglike the smell of copper on my skin. Sliding into a dark chuckle, I turn to check on Oakley.
Oh. Huh.
His eyes are enormous, his mouth a funny littleO.
Shit.
Knowing about me and seeing it in a controlled environment is one thing. Seeing it in the field is a horse of a different color. I sweep the ground and find my sunglasses, quickly putting them on. Which is silly because he’s already seen the black.
We’re still in the middle of a firefight, though, so I refocus.
Good thing, too, because there’s a man taking advantage of the dark between the headlights, running up on Oakley’s six.
I think the fuck not.
