2. Venetia
Venetia
T he stairwell is a vertical tomb, lit by the erratic flicker of emergency lights. Each step I take is deliberate, my gun held tight as Viper leads the way. His body is a solid wall of muscle next to me.
My mind is a chaotic mess of adrenaline and lust. Blake’s quiet confidence as he went to hunt a sniper on his own is a potent aphrodisiac.
The thought of him, the sophisticated, untouchable man, getting his hands bloody for me, for us, makes my pussy clench.
My promise to fuck him wasn’t a whim; it was a vow.
A reward for the monster I’m unleashing to survive this night.
Rafferty’s rifle continues its brutal song from down the hall, each shot a punctuation mark in our descent. He’s buying us time, buying Blake the element of surprise. We are a well-oiled machine, each part moving in sync with the others.
We reach the door to the outside. Once that door opens, our lives depend on each of us being the very best we can be. Viper puts a hand on the handle. “Crouch behind the rear offside tyre. Cover me while I get us more arms.”
I nod. I’m ready.
The door opens with a soft click, and a bullet hits the ground right in front of us.
We freeze and then hear Rafferty giving it back tenfold.
I can almost hear his cursing through the shots.
The night is alive with danger, shadows shifting in the orange glow of the burning library.
Smoke hangs heavy in the air, acrid and choking.
“Okay, he’s covering us. Go.” Viper gives me a shove.
I dart out behind him, keeping low as I sprint to his Range Rover. The rear tyre is large, providing decent cover as I crouch behind it. My hands are steady. All those hours at the shooting range with Dad are paying off now.
Viper moves like a predator, silent despite his size. He reaches the boot of his car and pops it open. I hope the arsenal he’s got stashed is enough firepower to level half the campus.
A shot rings out from somewhere near the gates, followed by a shout. Landon has made his move. The sound echoes across the quad, bouncing off ancient stone walls.
“Time to go,” Viper growls, slinging a rifle across his back and shoving extra magazines into his pockets. He tosses me a tactical vest. “Put this on.”
I slip it over my head, the weight of it reassuring.
Another burst of gunfire erupts from the direction of the gates. Landon’s pinned down.
“What exactly is Blake’s plan here?” I pant as we take cover next to the car, as a stream of bullets hits the ground at our feet.
“To provide a distraction while he gets to the shooter. This isn’t about taking out the fuckers at the gate but taking out the one shooting at us from inside.”
“Okay. Question before we go.”
“Shoot.” He smiles that half smile.
“Why aren’t the people at the gates storming the place?”
He shrugs. “We need to move,” he states and gives me a nod. “On my three.”
“One.”
I grip my weapon tighter, my knuckles white against the black metal.
“Two.”
My heart pounds so hard I’m sure the sniper can hear it from the clock tower.
“Three.”
We break cover, sprinting across the exposed courtyard like our lives depend on it. Which they do. It starts to rain, big splats of water hitting our faces as we run, the whistle of bullets cutting through the air above our heads.
I keep my body low, following Viper’s lead as we weave between the stone benches and ornamental fountains that dot the quad.
The burning library casts everything in hellish orange light, creating dancing shadows that could hide a dozen threats.
But I’m happy to see it’s only a fraction of the old building.
“They’re scaling,” Viper states.
I look up to the top of the thirty-foot-high gate and see a couple of men trying to get over.
“Wow, desperate much?” Those iron spikes adorning the top are enough to deter most sane people.
I don’t think, I just react, raising my gun and squeezing the trigger.
The recoil jolts through my arms, but my shot goes wide, chipping stone from a nearby wall.
“Fuck,” I spit, but Viper’s already returning fire, his shots precise and deadly. One guy drops.
“Move!” he barks.
We reach the relative safety of the administration building, pressing our backs against its cold stone walls. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath.
“How many more?”
“Too fucking many,” he growls, getting his rifle locked and loaded as backup. “We need to get to Landon and hope Blake hurries the fuck up.”
“Let’s go.”
He pauses. “Venetia.”
“Don’t,” I say, shaking my head. “We are all walking away from this.”
“You’d better, or your dad is going to fucking kill me.”
And with that love language affirmed, we move out.
We dart between buildings, using the shadows cast by the burning library as cover. The acrid smoke stings my eyes and burns my throat, but I keep moving.
Another burst of gunfire echoes from the direction of the gates. Landon’s still alive, still fighting. That’s something.
“There,” Viper points to a cluster of trees near the perimeter wall. “Landon’s position.”
He’s pinned down, return fire keeping him from advancing or retreating.
“How do we get to him without getting shot to pieces?” I ask.
“We don’t. We draw their fire whilst he moves.”
“Brilliant. And how exactly do we do that without dying?”
Viper’s grin is feral in the firelight. “Very carefully.”
He raises his rifle, sighting on the gate. “When I start shooting, you move to that fountain.” He indicates a large stone structure about twenty metres to our left. “Keep low, keep moving. Don’t stop until you’re behind solid stone.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
The lie sits heavy between us. He’s planning to stay put, to draw as much fire as possible whilst I reach cover. It’s a suicide play disguised as tactical support.
“No,” I say firmly. “We go together or not at all.”
His eyes flash with something between pride and frustration. “This isn’t a democracy, wildcat.”
“You’re right. It’s a monarchy, and I’m the fucking queen.” I grip his arm. “We survive this together, or we don’t survive it at all.”
For a heartbeat, I think he’s going to argue. Then his expression shifts, that dangerous half-smile returning. “Fine. Landon doesn’t have time for us to argue the shit about it. But you follow my lead, and if I tell you to run, you fucking run. I’ll punish you later for insubordination.”
“Promises,” I hiss, but deep down I want to feel him spank me so hard, I can’t sit down without feeling it for a week.
He positions himself behind a stone pillar, rifle ready. I crouch beside him. The weight of the tactical vest is reassuring, but it won’t stop a headshot.
“On my mark,” he murmurs, his voice deadly calm. “Three... two...”
The world explodes into chaos. Viper’s rifle barks in rapid succession, muzzle flashes lighting up his face like a demon. Return fire immediately peppers our position, stone chips flying as bullets impact the pillar.
“Move!” he roars.
I sprint toward the fountain, my legs pumping as hard as they can.
The sound of gunfire is deafening, a symphony of violence that drowns out everything else.
A bullet whines past my ear, close enough that I feel the heat of its passage.
Come on, Blake! I try not to let the thought that Blake failed enter my head.
Blake Locke doesn’t strike me as the type to die quietly.
I dive behind the fountain just as a hail of bullets strikes the stone above my head, sending fragments raining down on my shoulders. My heart hammers against my ribs as I press myself against the cold marble, trying to make myself as small as possible.
“Tell me again this is just to get rid of the clock tower shooter,” I grumble, brushing debris out of my hair.
“Mission’s changed,” he states. “Now we get these arseholes dead.”
“We need to hurry.”
He nods grimly, silently agreeing with my assessment.
“How many are down?”
“Four.”
His gaze goes over my shoulder, and he raises the rifle. I spin on my heels, take aim, and fire at the fucker trying to breach the gate. The bullet slams into him, knocking him backwards. He lands with a thump.
“Nice shot.”
“Cannon fodder,” I mutter. “They aren’t here to kill us, they are here to…”
“Draw our fire,” Viper finishes my thought.
“We’re playing each other at the same fucking game,” I hiss. “We need to end this. You ready?” I get ready to make my move.
“Whoa, wildcat,” he says. “They might not be the best and brightest, but they are still dangerous.”
“And we are more dangerous,” I say, straightening up and inhaling deeply.
I raise my gun and focus as Dad taught me.
Let everything else fade to the background.
I aim between the iron bars of the gates and squeeze the trigger.
The shot cracks through the night air, and one of the figures at the gate crumples.
“Five down,” I mutter, already lining up my next shot.
Viper’s eyes gleam with lust. “That’s my girl.”
Movement catches my eye near the groundskeeper’s shed. Landon breaks from cover, sprinting toward a cluster of overturned maintenance equipment. Two hostiles immediately pivot to track him, their weapons swinging in his direction.
I don’t think. I just act.
My gun barks twice in rapid succession. The first shot pings against the gates, the second hits its mark. “Dammit,” I mutter and try again.
Viper is firing off shot after shot. Two more down.
Two to go.
Landon reaches us and dives for cover as a spray of bullets hits the ground where he was moments ago.
“Two left,” Landon pants, wiping blood from a cut on his cheek. “But they’ve got better cover now.”
“Where’s Blake?” I demand, my eyes scanning the clock tower. The sniper’s rifle has gone silent, which either means Blake succeeded or?—
“There,” Viper points.
A figure appears at the top of the clock tower. It’s Blake, and he’s dragging something behind him. The sniper’s body tumbles from the tower, hitting the courtyard below with a sickening thud.
“Show off,” I mutter, but relief floods through me like warm honey.
Blake raises his hand in a brief salute before disappearing back into the tower.
A few minutes later, he emerges from the building’s ground floor entrance, striding across the quad like he’s walking into a boardroom rather than a battlefield.
He meets up with Rafferty, and they aim for us, a formidable army ready to end this shitshow.
Rafferty gives me a wild grin and drops to his stomach, snapping out a tripod and setting his sight on the gates. “Give me two seconds,” he murmurs.
I blink and it’s done. The two remaining poor fuckers at the gates are down.
“This was bizarre,” I mutter.
“You can say that again,” Viper agrees. “But it’s not over.”
“We need to flood the moat,” Blake says.
“The moat?” I ask, squinting at him.
He grins. “This used to be a castle to defend against marauding Scots. It has a fucking moat.”
“Where?” I ask, peering towards the gates.
“It’s overgrown, but you drove over it when you crossed the drawbridge.”
“The drawbridge?”
“You didn’t see it?”
“I was too busy staring at the gothic arches and fucking gargoyles to notice a drawbridge.”
“Observant,” he drawls with a wicked smile.
“We need to lock this place down tighter than a nun’s cunt,” Viper interjects. “Moat flooded, drawbridge up.”
“How do we flood the moat?”
“Underground reservoir. It’s finding it, though,” Blake muses.
“Let’s deal with the drawbridge first. Any ideas how we pull that up?” I ask.
“With brute strength. It hasn’t been pulled up in forever.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”
As one, we head towards the gates, this night far from over.