AT THE SAME moment as Talon sprang forward, blasting shots at our attackers from behind the cabinet door, I leapt past him toward a small cluster of men who’d been closing in on us from the other direction. I yanked my pistol from my calf holster as I rolled across the floor, shot three of them in the head in quick succession, and had my butcher knife ready to plunge into the chest of the fourth the second I reached him.
More bodies swarmed around me. I kept low to give the crew clear aim at our attackers and dashed for the shelter of a meat processing machine. From that vantage point, I surveyed the room.
Two things became clear very quickly. The first was that this room offered lots of advantages I could put to use. All those hanging chains would allow for swift movement over the heads of our attackers, and the hooks on their ends could serve as makeshift weapons.
The other was that the horde of fighters appeared to be mostly focused on me. They spewed bullets at the men in the crew as they charged forward, but they were barreling toward me again, even though Talon was still by the cabinet where I’d left him.
A chill trickled through me. I didn’t need to see any more than that to understand. This building belonged to the people associated with that teardrop symbol, and those were the same people who thought they owned me. They’d come to collect.
The crew were doing their best to defend me, as Julius had sworn they would. Talon kept firing on the incoming attackers, and Julius sprayed bullets from the other side of the room. Blaze and Garrison were getting in as many shots as they could too, but we were vastly overwhelmed. There had to be at least twenty men still rushing through the room. They shot at the guys the second any of them tried to take even a step from cover, and the vests they wore absorbed any shots that caught them in the torso.
“Aim for their heads!” I hollered out, although I suspected the crew had already figured that out for themselves, and scrambled onto the top of the sprawling machine. With a swift jump, I grasped one of the chains and swung out over the men who’d nearly reached me.
I had to keep one hand around the rust-speckled chain, but with the other, I hailed bullets on the men below. They scattered in an instant, but I caught two in the skull, splattering brains and blood across the already gruesome floor in a mess the crew might have appreciated if we hadn’t all been fighting for our lives.
Unfortunately, the chain chose that moment to give out. It unraveled abruptly from the fixtures on the ceiling, and I thumped to the ground, managing to brace my feet beneath me just in time to save me from landing on my ass.
I whirled around, finding myself in the midst of the attackers I’d just been harassing from overhead. As they converged on me again, the crew burst from the shelter they’d taken, Talon and Julius whipping out knives to take on our opponents in ways that wouldn’t risk me taking one of their bullets. I shot one man who loomed over me in the throat, wishing I hadn’t needed to leave behind my own knife.
When I ducked and swiveled, arms wrapped around my waist from behind. I slammed my foot down on my attacker’s and heaved him over my back. With a well-timed shove, I rammed him into one of the dangling hooks with a sickening crunch as it penetrated his spine at the base of his skull. His body jerked and went still.
More of the men were grabbing at my limbs. I kicked, punched, and aimed careful bullets to avoid my allies, opening a path through the menacing swarm. I hurtled out of the worst of the crowd in time to see Garrison dueling another attacker who’d lost his gun. As he aimed a punch at the guy’s face, another man lunged at him from behind, right near me.
I didn’t think, only moved. Flinging myself at the man, I knocked him to the ground just inches from where Garrison stood. I snapped the attacker’s wrist, yanked the knife he’d been wielding from his loosening fingers, and plunged it into his back right through the vest. Bulletproof didn’t mean blade-proof.
Garrison had just managed to get a clear enough opening to shoot his opponent in the forehead. He spun around and saw me on the floor behind him, wrenching the knife free from the dead man who’d meant to do the same to him. I glanced up, and his hazel eyes locked with mine.
His jaw twitched. “Thanks,” he muttered, not sounding particularly grateful despite the word.
I didn’t have time to lecture him on his tone, because another bunch of men launched themselves at us—mostly at me—in the same moment. I hurled myself away behind another machine, but they pounded after me.
My breath was coming ragged from the intense pace I’d been keeping up. More gunshots reverberated through the large room.
I had to give the crew more of an opening. Get our attackers into a tighter space where they’d have less room to maneuver, and then we could surround them despite having smaller numbers.
The pricks were after me, obviously. So I’d just have to lead the way.
I dodged the closest attackers and sprinted toward the hall. The slaughtering room where I’d found the knife seemed like my best bet. I could grab another blade there if I needed to. I veered toward it—and realized I’d failed to take one factor into account.
A few more men had broken into the factory through other windows at that end of the building—maybe backup that’d just arrived. I dashed into the room I’d been aiming for, several other attackers right on my heels, and nearly ran straight into three others. Suddenly, I was the one surrounded.
I fired off two quick shots, managing to take down one man and wound another in the leg before someone behind me closed in enough to wrench my wrist and disarm me. When I swung around, snatching up the abandoned butcher knife in my other hand, the men behind me leapt at me. I caught one in the gut with a backward kick, slicing at the ones coming at me through the doorway, but there were too many. If the crew were following, they hadn’t reached me yet.
A bulging arm slammed around my throat. I went still, knowing that thrashing could force him to crush my windpipe, willing my body to relax so I could move swiftly as soon as I saw my opening.
“The boss wants us to take you in alive,” my captor snarled by my ear. “But we’re authorized to kill you if we can’t accomplish that. It’s up to you whether you walk out of this shithole with your life.”
A sudden chill washed over my mind as I stared at the mass of attackers closing in around me. The crew might not make it to me in time. I could take down another three, maybe four of these assholes… more if I was lucky, but I didn’t like relying on luck.
The odds were against me. If I kept fighting, I might very well die here at these pricks’ hands.
A flicker of panic shot through me—and then faded away. In its place, my nerves went totally still with a weird sense of calm.
I didn’t care. If I died, I died. I’d rather become a corpse than end up locked away and essentially a slave all over again. This was my choice.
“When you bring back my dead body, I hope they kill you out of spite,” I said. In the same instant, I jerked my body to snap his hold.
My knife caught another guy who leapt at me in the neck. I kicked the one behind me into the edge of one of the tables and dropped to the floor both to avoid the groping hands and to snatch up the gun I’d lost.
I flipped onto my back and fired at the faces looming over me. Someone dove in with a knife that raked across my shoulder when I deflected it from my throat at the last second. Hissing at the sting of pain, I clamped my free hand around his wrist and wrenched to plunge the blade into his own chest.
I tripped another attacker with a slam of my heel, rolled under the table and shot a few legs before someone slammed a steel-toed boot into my ribs from the other side. With another wince, I whirled around and shot the kneecap on the offending leg. The man toppled over, and I added another bullet to his head.
More attackers swarmed on me, but other shouts joined the fray—voices I was much happier to hear.
“Take this, fuckers!” Blaze called out with fierce exuberance.
Julius’s growl followed. “This is what happens to anyone who messes with the Chaos Crew.”
What followed was a blur of adrenaline, movement, and gunfire. I snatched my last cartridge from my pocket and shoved it into my gun as the guys did their work and then added more of my own bullets to the deluge from beneath the table. Bodies swayed and crumpled around me.
One final attacker sprang at me with a knife in both hands, but my kick to his belly sent him sprawling—right beneath the swing of Talon’s knife.
In the sudden quiet, I scrambled out from under the table. Our dead opponents littered the room around me, and I could see others sprawled in the hallway outside. Julius looked the scene over with a grim smile.
Blaze’s gaze snagged on me—and the cut carved into my shoulder. “You’re hurt.”
I pressed my hand to the wound. “I’ll be fine. It’s not that deep.” The stinging had already dulled to a faint ache.
Garrison looked up from where he was crouched in the corner, checking the attackers’ pockets. “I’m not finding any ID, but this prick is still alive,” he said, motioning to a man who was bleeding from his thigh and stomach. “Maybe he can cough up some details for us?”
A hard glint came into Julius’s eyes. “I’ll bet he can. But we shouldn’t wait around here for more of these assholes to come at us. Bring him. With a little convincing, I’m sure we can find out everything he knows.”
Talon went over to haul the guy into his hold. The injured man flailed ineffectually as we strode back through the factory.
Blaze glanced at me, managing a wry smile. “Not such a bad lead after all, in the end.”
I nodded to the man. “Let’s see if he gives anything up before we make a final judgment on that.”
