And then there was Nikita. He stalked up the steps like the predator he was, breeze playing with his long coat.
“You’re just going to walk right in?” she’d asked before.
“Yes. It’s the last thing they’ll expect.”
And that’s what he did. He carried a variety of handguns, and she wouldn’t let herself look away as he used one to clear out the guards.
The bodies fell. One after the next. The gunshots were distant cracks, likes eggs breaking. And then the three of them swept inside the massive double front doors, Nikita on point.
Trina took a deep breath…
And heard a twig snap down below.
She jerked her face off the stock and glanced down, letting the rifle’s weight pull it down, too, so it was aimed at the man standing beneath her tree.
Eyes wide and white-rimmed in his dark face, he was dressed in dark green, head-to-toe, some sort of tactical gear. He carried an AK, with a knife and a sidearm strapped to his hip.
He was not, she noted, wearing the black of the front door guards.
Slowly, he lifted an empty hand up, palm toward her.Wait.
They were both breathing hard, the competing rhythms louder than the birdsong around them.
“You one of them?” she asked.
“No. You?”
“No.”
They stared.
“What are you doing here?” Trina asked. Her hands sweated on the stock, and she tightened them.
An echoing sheen of sweat dampened his forehead, glittering in the slanted sunlight. “I’m on a rescue mission. How ‘bout you?”
“Same.”
More staring.
“I’m Deshawn,” he said, finally.
“Trina.”
A sound startled her, and she flinched; Deshawn flinched. It took her a moment to realize that what she’d heard was a walkie-talkie, and not her own.
“Those are my friends,” Deshawn explained, pointing to the radio on his belt. “I need to check in.”
She nodded, and he reached for it with deliberate, careful slowness.
“Who are your friends?” she asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”
“Try me.”
~*~
Rooster’s brain whited out. All he could think was an endless loop ofholy fucking shitas he stared down at the man…the whatever he was…drinking another man’s blood from his throat like a…like a…
