Page 168 of Kill Feed

“I hear you’ve been slaughtering hunters, ey?” His voice is low and coarse enough to vibrate through the room.

I glance at the cleaver, then back at him.

“Word travels fast.”

Behind him, someone smaller emerges from the crowd. The scarecrow-like woman tilts her head, the brim of her mask almost contorting as she fumes, “You’ll pay for what you did to Conan.”

Another grieving hunter, how touching.

I let out a quiet scoff before my attention shifts to the twins. Yara and Yasmin haven’t moved. They aren’t smiling either, which is considerably less reassuring than their usual theatrics.

I raise my eyebrows. “You two also got a bone to pick with me?”

I step half a pace in front of Adrian, putting myself between him and the hunters without bothering to hide what I’m doing.

“Did Miss Whitlock put you up to this?” I add, tilting my head. “Because if she did, I’d like to complain about the lack of originality.”

A hunter in a leather jacket and black ski mask steps forward, his partner hovering just behind his shoulder. “A bounty’s been placed on your head,” he starts, teeth grinding. “Yours and Marcos’s.”

My smile falters for half a fraction. But I know that bastard’s just as hard to kill as I am, so the idea of him laying face down on concrete evaporates immediately.

I turn my head slightly toward Adrian.

“You need to run,” I claim, voice low. “I can hold them here. You go around and find another route to the safe—”

“I’m not leaving you,” Adrian articulates, rooted to the spot.

“Adrian, you need to go, now,” I add, feeling the energy across the room shifting, waiting for me to make the first move.

“I said I’m not leaving,” he states, his voice firmer now. “I’m never leaving your side again.”

Before I can argue, he steps forward and reaches for the knife strapped across my chest, pulling it free with a confidence that sends a ridiculous flicker of pride through me. Then he moves to my side, shoulder nearly brushing mine as he faces the hunters.

Fuck, he’s so adorable I could kiss him right now.

“Jesus,” Yasmin sighs from across the room as she steps out from behind the hunters, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the entire situation. “I would’ve liked to win as a hunter at least once before getting killed.”

Yara joins her with a resigned shake of her head, coming to stand beside us. “You owe us lunch for this.”

I glance between the twins and Adrian’s perplexity, then back at the hunters.

Apparently, I’m assembling a fucking army.

The shitshow commences with the hunters moving first.

The four of them spread instinctively, trying to separate us before we can exploit the numbers. I shift with Adrian, keeping him within my peripheral vision as the first hunter closes in.

Steel flashes. It twists and turns as a sea of bodies collide, step and stumble upon the walkway in uneven fractions. I deliver blows just as much as I receive them.

Yara and Yasmin move like they’ve been doing this together their entire lives, which, considering the amount of chaos they’ve caused tonight, they probably have. One distracts while the other strikes, the lace of their skirts whipping around their legs as they dart between the hunters.

As for the bastard, Hendrick, in front of me, he recovers and swings again.

I duck beneath the cleaver and drive my shoulder into his chest, sending both of us crashing against the railing. The brass groans beneath the impact, and for a second, we’re balanced dangerously close to the stairs leading below.

The pig-skinned brute drives me backward until the railing bites into my spine. I brace myself, already twisting in an attempt to throw him over it when a blade whistles past his head and buries itself in his neck.

Blood erupts across the space between us, and I snap my mouth shut just before the spray reaches it.