Page 46 of Hunted

Seb’s face was a portrait of unhinged rage—and the longer I remained unfound, the wilder his malice would get. He pulled something out of his pocket and dragged it to his lips. A heartbeat later, his whisper sent a wave of nausea rolling through me in a way I’d never experienced before.

“Come out, come out, little bird.”

Unbeknownst to him, I watched as he prowled across the room, towering over a dazed Ethan. He slid Eth’s identical blade from his vest, dragged it up his chest in a sick echo of a lover’s caress, to rest at his throat.

“Come play with me, Adelaide, or all your friends will die… starting with Taylor.”

Seb pressed down on the blade, cutting a shallow line into Ethan’s throat, holding the mic to his mouth—ensuring I heard the whimper of my last remaining friend through my earpiece.

My hands shook, and I stifled a gasp, still unwilling to give myself away.

What that said about me, I didn’t care to analyse.

I peered through the vent with morbid curiosity, terrified to know how far Seb would go to get to me. I glanced at the blade revealing the other half of the room, and met the steely green gaze of Hunter Beckett.

He was staring right at me, though in this darkened little cavity, I had no idea how much of me he could actually see.

Ethan whimpered into the mic again, just as Beckett’s gaze flicked over to his captor, then back to my dagger. In a move none of us saw coming, Beckett launched to his feet and shoved Sebastos to the ground in one smooth motion—without his arms free to properly land or dispatch Seb.

It was a futile attempt. But it bought me the time I needed.

Seb roared, shifting his grip on Ethan’s blade, and cut across Beckett’s torso in a sharp, underhanded slash.

“You think you can take me?” he shouted. “You think you can beat me?!”

Sebastos leaned over the instructor and grabbed a handful of Beckett’s hair. He dragged him into a seated position with a sharp wrench, inciting a grunt of pain and an acid-filled glare.

“You have no idea, Sir,” Sebastos spat.

Beckett tipped his head back slightly as his captor withdrew to turn the blade on Evander instead.

“Give me that keyword or your friend here dies.”

Beckett’s fingers wriggled, his palm facing the ceiling—directly beneath me.

Surely he doesn’t mean…

They wriggled again, more urgently, as Sebastos dragged the tip of his knife over the old scar in Evander’s brow, reopening it.

Fuck. Okay. Let’s do this.

I pulled my own dagger out of the vent, flipped it over so the handle now pointed to the floor, and dropped it—right into Beckett’s waiting palm.

Catching it soundlessly, giving no indication to the sabotage I was now a willing part of, Beckett sliced through the cable ties binding his wrists, using the bark of pain his friend provided as cover. In the span of ten seconds, Beckett was armed, free, and full of a vengeance I could only begin to guess at.

But so was I.

Unwilling to be upstaged by the ogre, I figured now was probably my only chance to act. I wiggled a section of the vent panels free, exposing a square of free space to work with. Before anyone noticed the absence of said panel, I pulled the Glock from its holster on my belt and pointed the barrel through the opening—aiming right at Sebastos motherfucking Varco.

This one’s for you, Fleur. I squeezed the trigger and ignited a retaliatory symphony of gunfire and cuss words.

Seb raged, telling me at least one of the bullets had found a home beneath his slimy skin. “In the roof!” he roared. “She’s in the fucking roof!”

A series of bullets pierced the ceiling tiles—three exiting the section I’d recently vacated. I didn’t stick around to see what he’d do after being shot. There was no space to run, no space to hide, but I crawled across the panels as fast as I could, dodging a melee of hot lead projectiles—sure that my luck would end eventually.

Almost immediately, it did.

It ended with the sting of a hot poker grazing my hip. I stumbled at the shock, crashed through the plasterboard, and landed flat on my back a floor below.