Chapter 4 Cold-Blooded Killer #3
I blinked at the carnage all around me, then at Lucas Scott, who wiped the blood from his knife as one would scrape a paintbrush to remove the excess paint—impassive and calm.
A gasp drew my attention to Liliana, still alive. I crawled to her, pain biting into my injured elbow all the way to my shoulder. The weapon in her side was buried deep, right into her liver. If I left it there, the bleed would be slower. I could get her to headquarters…
“You’re going to be okay,” I said to her, my words wobbly. My shaking hand grasped hers. A weak grip squeezed back.
Behind me, Lucas Scott swiped something from the ground. His throwing knife, I saw, as he cleaned that too, then holstered it.
“So—Soph—” Liliana rasped, and even in the dark, her pallor was apparent.
The dark presence behind me prowled closer. He stood only inches away. “Get up,” he said, low and sharp.
I ignored him. My grip on Liliana’s hand tightened while hers diminished.
His razor voice cut through the darkness. “Get up.”
“I’m—I’m not leaving her.” My breath hitched when Liliana’s mouth tilted up at one corner. The air around me grew tense with the anger simmering from the man at my back, but I refused to let go.
Muttering a curse, Lucas Scott bent, and in one swift move, he unsheathed the blade from Liliana’s body. I cried out a protest, but it was too late. Blood poured from the wound—far too much of it.
“How could—how could you do that?” I took Liliana’s face in my hands. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll get you back—”
I was jerked upright by my arm, and I hissed at the zing through my elbow. “Stop!”
He spun me to face him. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re a medic. You know a fatal wound when you see one. I just did her a favor.”
He was right. I knew he was right, but my conscience hadn’t quite accepted the idea of brutal mercy.
After all these years, I still couldn’t bear the thought of euthanasia.
Perhaps I clung to hope like a child grips a favored toy—no matter how battered or mutilated, they still sought comfort in its presence.
Liliana would have died regardless of my help, but I was searching for a miracle, like a moron, and that realization infuriated me. “You—you—”
“Why are you here?” he hissed, dragging me deeper into the alley, deeper into the dark. “Are you not a vitally important resource for the Defiance now? Why do they have you on the streets like a common foot soldier? You’re clearly not experienced in combat.”
Despite everything, heat suffused my cheeks, and the flush of blood only made my face throb harder. Experience and competency don’t always go hand in hand, I wanted to tell him. I’d had enough experience to last me a lifetime. “I’m a field medic,” I said. “We’re assigned on a rotating basis.”
He swore, but then his body went rigid as he shot a cutting look toward the mouth of the alley. Only then did I become aware of the sound.
Footsteps.
The previous flush of blood in my cheeks drained away. “Who is it?” I whispered.
He yanked me, his hand a manacle around my upper arm as I struggled to keep up with his near-silent steps.
A metal staircase connected to a second-story doorway, with a rainbow stack of crates beneath it.
He manhandled me into the tiny space between the crates and a dumpster, and my back hit the brick wall.
His palm covered my mouth, and he stepped close. Too close. So close that my hands rose instinctively to push him away. Except I didn’t.
I paused.
My gaze lifted to his face, twisted in fury. A warning flickered in his eyes.
Don’t make a sound.
He… He was protecting me.
My hands dropped back to my sides. I tried to even my breath, but my body was inexplicably starving for oxygen, and I sucked in air through my nose like I’d never get to do it again.
He should have smelled of gunpowder and blood. Of metal and sweat. Instead, Lucas Scott’s scent reminded me of incense—something heady and warm and so out of place that my heart rate slowed from the intrusive confusion.
Incense?
Several sets of boots trotted down the alley, jolting me back to myself. My body was compressed so tightly against Lucas’s that anyone passing by wouldn’t see me at a glance.
“Look at this, Powell,” a voice bounced against the bricks.
“Christ,” said another. “Blood bath. I’ll get the cleanup team. Fucking Defiants.”
“Yeah, you go on,” the first man said, a little closer now. “Alley looks clear now. Colonel said to make sure the building’s empty.”
The solid thunk of a foot kicking in a door made me jump, and Lucas’s hand pressed tighter against my mouth, his chest harder against my own. After a few more seconds, the parade of boots entered the building and the heavy door slammed shut.
The alleyway plunged into silence.
Lucas’s hand freed my mouth by degrees, almost as if he thought I might scream the moment I had the chance. No way. I might have been a terrible combat soldier, but I wasn’t stupid.
Lucas Scott was a cold-blooded killer. His attacks weren’t survivable.
In his wake, he left no prisoners. But he was also the only thing standing between me and capture.
He’d committed fratricidal treason by eliminating his own men to keep me safe.
I’d have to dwell on the whys of that some other time because in that moment, I recognized him for what he was: my deliverer.
I would not scream. If he could get me out of this alley alive, I’d do anything he asked. Awaiting instruction, I gazed into his eyes, obscured by the darkness except for a tiny glimmer that proved he was indeed human.
“Run,” he said. “Take Yorktown north. Run and don’t stop.”
I nodded, frantic. He withdrew, and I pushed off the brick wall. Later, everything would hurt—my arm, my face, my soul—but right then, the adrenaline held it all at bay. It gave me the energy, the drive, to escape.
Eager to put his instructions to use, I almost didn’t hear the deceptive softness of his voice as he spoke my name.
The look on his face gave me pause. It was familiar somehow, that awful mix of rage, desperation and despondency. It reminded me of how withdrawn I’d been of late, how cold this life had become.
“This doesn’t happen again,” he said. “Tell them to do better. The agreement was one contact. If they waste you, they lose me. That is non-negotiable.”
Six interminable heartbeats passed.
If they waste you, they lose me.
Why? What value was I to him? If I died, and a new contact was sent, his secret would still be contained.
But I didn’t question it. If Lucas Scott wanted to value my life, who was I to argue?
“Run,” he said once more.
So I ran.