Carter Reed 2

“Hmm?” He lifted his arm to look. “What’d you say, Em?” He looked now.

I held my breath. He didn’t know what I had in my hand. He just saw the set of my jaw and the determination in my eyes.

“No, Emma.” He shook his head. “Let them handle it. It’s for the best.”

It wasn’t. My alarms had been going off since he got back. He’d been wounded. Drake had been taken. Carter and Michael left to rescue him, but it was all wrong. Why let him go? Why now? It was a trap. Carter knew it, too. I could tell by the way he seared me with a look, but he had to go. They had one of his men, and Drake was family now. He had to go, but so did I.

“No, Peter.” He didn’t understand. “Where are they?” I was going.

His eyes narrowed, and I watched as he realized he didn’t have his weapon. He remembered where it was, and he knew I had it.

My arm dropped from behind me to my side, and I moved over, out of reach.

“Emma, I’m serious. You can’t go after them.” His eyes trained on the gun in my hand.

“Okay.” Let’s lie about this then. Let’s do it that way.

I put the gun aside and held my hands up, making a show about it. “Fine. I won’t go, but I still want to know where they are.” I had to know. And he didn’t know about the bungee cord behind him. I was banking on that.

His gaze centered on the gun; he was thinking it over. I hoped his thoughts went along this route: what would it hurt? He could grab the gun faster than me now. He looked me up and down, and his head lifted a bit. Oh, yes. I was smaller than him. He was quicker than me. If I did anything, he could get the gun and hold me off. Easily.

I needed him to think all of this over. I held up my hands again. “I won’t go. I promise. Just tell me where. Tell me, Peter. What if something happens? I can call someone, Cole maybe. I can send him there. Just...” Please God, tell me. “Where are they?”

“Emma, if I told you—”

“I won’t go,” I barked out and moved another step away from the gun. “I’m promising you, but I have to know where they went.” My hand pressed against my stomach. “This doesn’t feel right, Peter. They had you, and they let you go? You didn’t fight to get away. They. Let. You. Go.” Why wasn’t he just telling me?! “Think about it!”

“Emma, I—” He stopped himself. He knew I was right. I could see the dots connecting in his eyes. He was going to tell me. I could almost see it on the tip of his tongue. I stepped forward, my hands in the air, as if I could pull it out of him. Then he gestured to the gun and started to stand. “Okay, but give me—”

My voice rose. “Just tell me! My god!”

He sat back, stunned. A look of sympathy filtered across his face. “At sixteen-oh-one Bezzaleen Road. It’s by Uni—”

I knew enough. I whipped around, grabbed the gun, and turned back to him.

His eyes were wide. He tried to stand and stop me, but the bungee contracted and jerked him back down. He began to twist around, a question on his lips. “What the—”

I whipped the end of the gun across his face as hard as I could. He fell back. I needed to hit him once more, so I backed up and ran at him. At the last minute, I jumped in the air and put all of my body weight behind the gun as I hit him again.

His body slumped. I caught him before he fell out of the chair, pulling it over top of him because of the cord, and I tried to slow his descent to the floor. It wasn’t smooth, but I lessened his fall a little bit. Before his head hit the floor, I caught it with my foot. And then—it was all over.

Peter was unconscious, but safe. I was good to go.

I didn’t waste time. I grabbed another gun and shoved it into my pocket, then I grabbed a Taser for my other pocket. Weapons, weapons, weapons. I could almost hear Carter’s urgings in my head as I forced myself to think clearly. I was going in. I was a girl. I was at a disadvantage, so that meant I needed to equal the power, and that meant as many weapons as possible. Fuck it. I grabbed another bungee and tied it around my ankle, securing a third gun there. I did the same around my waist, pulling my shirt over so it hid the bulge.

I had four guns, a Taser, and—I reached for a handful of knives and a leather case. I put the knives inside, then looped the strap around my head. It looked like I had a wallet as a necklace. Whatever worked.

I left.

I took my own car, and when I got to the block Peter had mentioned, I parked the car and began running down the sidewalk. I must’ve looked a sight, but I didn’t care. As long as I got there and could slip in—that was my whole plan. Sneak in. Help where I could. Get Carter out. Those three things.

When I got to the house, the front door had been kicked open. Well, it looked blasted open, but no one was standing guard, so I walked through.

That’s when I heard the gunshots.

They were in the back of the house. I had come in at the end. As I hurried through, I stepped over bodies and kept looking from room to room. I didn’t know who was hiding out, or if Carter, Michael, or Drake had been left behind. Sweeping through the bottom floor, I found only dead bodies. Most were bleeding from the chest, though some bled from their heads, but all of them had that vacant look of death in their eyes. That was fine by me. So many.

I didn’t want to count them. I couldn’t. I knew Carter had killed them all.

I circled up to the second floor and began hearing small moans. The men up there were still alive. As I moved from room to room, I grabbed their guns or kicked them out of reach. They couldn’t roll over and shoot me in the back that way. I dropped all the weapons into the toilet and locked the door so no one could get in there.