At the last staff meeting, we’d discussed the idea of looters trying to come up here now that the stores were running so low on essential supplies, but Brown had been convinced that we were nowhere near the point at which that would be a concern. Well now look. Look what had come from being underprepared and overestimating the good in people.
I should have known better. I’d seen first hand how ruthless people could be when it came down to it. At the end of the day, when someone was backed into a corner, all of their morals went out the window. Even the sweetest little old lady would cut your throat if it meant her grandkids didn’t starve to death. It was the human condition. And I couldn’t claim to be any better. All I could claim was that I didn’t have a single soul in this world to look out for like that aside from myself. Or at least I’d thought I could claim that. Until Tatum Rivers had called on me begging for help.
I couldn’t remember the last time someone had needed me like that. Hell, I couldn’t think of a single other person in the world who would even consider calling me. Let alone calling me first. So either Tatum was just as alone as I was in this godforsaken place or she actually trusted me more than anyone else.
I didn’t know if the idea of that terrified or thrilled me, but I did know there was no fucking way I was going to let her down.
I didn’t know what the fuck had happened during that call, but the screams had been enough to send my imagination into overdrive. I’d started running for The Temple instantly and as I’d closed in on it I’d finally remembered something that could help me. I could see exactly where she was using the GPS tracker on her watch. And as I checked it again, my heart leapt as I saw that she’d made it out of the church.
She was heading east, away from The Temple and moving towards the lake.
I adjusted my path, turning slightly so that I could intercept her, leaping off of the path and into the trees as I ran on.
Thorns and brambles snagged at my sweatpants, one of them catching the bottom of my T-shirt and ripping it as it scored a line of blood across my stomach, but I didn’t slow.
I gripped my phone so tightly that I was afraid I might crack it, my teeth clenching as I checked the dot marking her location again and again.
I was getting closer. Three hundred meters, two hundred, one…
I stumbled to a halt near a cluster of boulders between the trees and spun around as I searched for her.
It was eerily quiet in the woods, only the distant shouts of the looters at The Temple breaking the silence at all.
“Tatum?” I called, not too loud but loud enough for her to hear if she was anywhere near me.
There was no reply and my heart pounded as I fought to catch my breath, straining my eyes in the moonlight that filtered down through the trees as I tried to spot her.
“Tatum?” Louder this time, but she still didn’t reply and I fought really fucking hard not to give in to the panic that rose in me.
I glanced down at my cellphone and my heart leapt as the dot marking her location was showing further away from me again. But that didn’t make sense. There was no way she could have passed me out here without me seeing her. No way.
Unless…
I looked down at the ground beneath my feet, remembering the time I’d found the old entrance to the catacombs beneath the church which opened out down by Sycamore Beach. The tunnels burrowed all over this side of the hill. I’d thought that I might be able to sneak into The Temple to search through Saint’s things by using them to get into the old church, but of course he had it gated off and locked up half way through the tunnels. But if my theory was correct, it looked like Tatum had found a way into them from the church end.
I turned and dove into the trees again, racing for the beach as anxiety gnawed at me.
Tatum had been afraid for her life when she’d called me. She’d been scared of those fuckers and begged me to come. I wanted to believe she’d managed to escape them when she’d run down into the crypts, but I couldn’t be sure. And if there was even the slightest chance that she was still in trouble then I was going to get to her come hell or high water.
I tore through the trees, racing down the hill towards the lake where the moonlight glimmered off of the deep water and lured me closer.
The further I got, the thinner the woodland became until I spilled out onto the sandy beach.
The soft sand sank beneath my sneakers, fighting to slow me down as I turned north, racing towards the rocky outcrop at the end of the beach where the cave which led into the catacombs was hidden.
The water was still and ominous to my right, the sky bright and clear with the moon hanging like a fat orb low to the horizon. It would have been beautiful if the scent of blood hadn’t been hanging thickly in the air.
I glanced at my phone once more just before I reached the cave entrance, seeing the dot marking Tatum’s position somewhere off to my left. The catacombs were filled with endless tunnels and crypts and it was no wonder I’d beaten her to this point. She was so close now, but I wasn’t going to slow until I reached her. Wasn’t going to relax until I was sure she was okay.
I hesitated at the mouth of the cave, glancing between the ancient Native American carvings which were almost entirely hidden beneath the more modern catholic symbols. Newer still than those was a sign painted onto the rock wall in what looked suspiciously like dried blood.
Turn back now or invoke the wrath of the Night Keepers.
You have been warned.
Beneath the message they’d painted the four Night Keeper arrows too and it pissed me off that I even recognised the stupid symbols they used to mark themselves out.
A scream echoed to me from the darkness and my breath caught as I recognised Tatum’s voice calling to me from deep inside the caves.
It was clear that Tatum was somewhere within these tunnels and not even a warning from the devil himself would have made me turn back now. So the Night Keepers were going to come for me if I crossed their threshold were they? Well, I’d like to see them try.
My pulse was thrashing to the thick roar of some heavy metal which was currently taking place entirely within my own head.
My entire existence had narrowed down to three things. One: the tightness of my grip on the bat I held between my fists. Two: the power in my muscles as I swung that motherfucker like there was no tomorrow and I really was living in my own personal zombie apocalypse. And three: the way my soul sang with every drop of blood I spilled and every thieving asshole I knocked to the dirt screaming beneath me.
Blake and Saint were right behind me as we carved a path towards The Temple and we hunted down each and every one of the fuckers who were already spilling back out of our home with their arms full of toilet paper.
If someone had told me a few weeks ago that I’d be breaking bones over packs of stuff intended for wiping your ass, I’d have laughed myself shitless. Turns out, fate had a sense of humour after all.
The three of us fought savagely as we drew closer and closer to the church, the inside of which had never before been seen by another soul. Saint was practically busting a blood vessel at the thought of so many unwashed commoners tearing through his things and I wasn’t sure if I should be concerned about him dropping dead from a heart attack or suddenly sprouting horns and a forked tongue.
As the only one of us with a weapon and our trio’s self-appointed attack dog, I took the lead but not by much. They had to stay behind me anyway, keeping away from the arc of my baseball bat as I swung it with reckless abandon.
For the first time in my life, there was no leash on me at all. Nothing to keep me in check, no reason for me to hold back. Hell, every fucker in the world would be on my side in this. I was protecting my motherfucking home from trespassers. I was practically a superhero. Though with less morals and a fuck tonne more bloodlust. But still, Batman had nothing on me. For a start I had an actual bat. He couldn’t claim that shit. And I had to say as far as weapons went, this one was pretty damn epic.
/> We made it to the door of The Temple where it hung open and I bellowed a challenge as we burst inside.
The place had been ransacked, the fridge and kitchen cupboards hanging open with nothing left in them, the toilet paper throne scattered and broken, drawers, doors and boxes open and turned out. They’d even upended Saint’s fucking chair.
Saint roared in agony as he saw the state of his spotless home, charging past me as he leapt on a guy whose arms were full of toilet paper. He punched, kicked and even bit with the fury of a wild animal and I felt like I really was seeing a demon given flesh as I watched him for a moment.
The grin on my face couldn’t be dampened and Blake raced across the room towards the flagstone which concealed the safe, barrelling a guy over with a classic football tackle as he went.
I looked around to pick my own target and swung my bat at an asshole who was trying to steal my fucking guitar.
He leapt back, waving the guitar in front of him to keep me away as I stalked closer.
“People don’t steal from me and live to tell the tale,” I warned him in a dark voice.
“This is my guitar you motherfucker!” he shrieked. “You stole it from me when I was busking in town last summer! It’s my whole life you piece of shit!”
“Oh.” I’d almost forgotten about that. A laugh burst from my lips. This shit was funny. Like some kind of cosmic irony. “You can go then,” I said, waving him away with my bat.
“Really?” he gasped, not waiting for my response as he darted for the door.
I let him get four steps before I chased him, swinging the bat with all my strength so that it slammed into the middle of the guitar, shattering the thing into a thousand shards of wood and wire.
The busker screamed like I’d just butchered his wife or something and I laughed as I hefted the bat again.
“You want it to be your skull next?” I taunted.
The busker’s eyes widened and he shook his head as he backed away from me, his features painted with terror.
“Then get the fuck out of my house! And don’t ever let me see your sorry face again or hear your piss poor attempt at singing either!”
He bolted like there was a rocket jammed up his ass and I laughed as I turned back to the room.
“Kyan!” Blake bellowed and that warning coupled with my instincts helped me dodge aside just as a hammer swung straight for my head.
I threw the bat up between me and the asshole who’d just tried to kill me and as the two weapons collided, it was ripped from my hands and spun away across the flagstones into some dark corner.
My hand closed around the asshole’s throat before he could get another swing in and I threw my arm up to deflect the next blow before it could brain me.
Pain splintered through my forearm as the wooden handle of the hammer collided with it and I roared a challenge as I slammed the motherfucker back against the closest wall.
His head hit the bricks so hard that the strength left his limbs and the hammer fell beside us with a dull thump.
The guy’s hands locked around my wrist as he tried to rip my hand off of his throat and he was damn strong. But I was stronger and as my fingers cut off his oxygen and his eyes widened in panic, I knew he knew it to.
I held his life in my grasp and my pulse thrummed hungrily as I watched his fear spike to panic and finally begin to dull.
The sound of a gunshot snapped me out of the moment and I dropped the asshole just before he managed to blackout, whirling back towards the room and finding Blake standing over the safe with Tatum’s gun in hand as he aimed it at the closest looter to him. There was a shiny new bullet hole in the brick wall beside the stained glass window.
“You’ve got thirty fucking seconds to leave our stuff behind and get the fuck out of here or the next one goes straight in someone’s skull,” he snarled and that flat, black look in his eyes told me he meant that with every fibre of his being.
In less than a heartbeat, every fucker in the room dropped their shit and ran. The guy I’d almost choked out tried to grab his hammer but I stepped on it before he could, snarling at him as he glanced up at me for a moment and then ran for it. I wondered if he’d seen his death in my eyes when I’d been choking him. I wondered if he knew just as surely as I did that he owed his ongoing survival to my mercy. Because there was something about being the owner of that power which had me lighting up from the inside out.
I whirled around to check that the rest of the fuckers were gone and spotted Saint covered in blood splatter as he continued to beat the living shit out of the guy beneath him.
I strode across the room and grabbed his shoulders, forcibly tearing him off of the thief who was still clutching a single roll of toilet paper in his hand like it had all been worth it if he could just keep that.
Saint damn near swung at me and Blake leapt on him to hold him back as I looked down to see if the guy he’d been pounding on was still breathing or not.
He groaned but didn’t seem capable of walking so I grabbed him beneath the arms and hauled him across the flagstones to the door. I tossed him out onto the path beyond The Temple doors and reached down to snatch the roll of bloody toilet paper from his fist.
He whimpered like that was the worst thing to have happened to him in all of this and I ripped a single square from the roll before dropping it on his chest.
“Clean your bloody face up and fuck off,” I snarled. “If you’re still out here when I come back, I’ll toss you in the lake to drown.”
I slammed the door between us and locked it before I turned back to the destruction of our home.
Saint’s lips parted on what was bound to be a tirade which would last into next week, but before he could start it, a scream echoed up to us from the open door which led down to the crypt and we all froze.
“Was that-” Blake began but Tatum screamed again and something cold and sharp slid deep inside my chest, threatening to gut me more surely than any knife.
We all raced for the door at the same time but I got there first, taking the stairs three at a time before landing in the gym and spotting the gate which led down to the catacombs standing wide open.
“If someone followed her down there to hurt her, I’ll rip their organs out and force feed them to them,” Saint hissed behind me, but I didn’t respond.
My own rage had no words. It had no voice and no time for thought.
It was deep and pure and endless.
Tatum Rivers belonged to me and I had no intention of that ever changing. She’d wormed her way beneath my skin and I’d given my word to protect her as my own.
There were no words which could describe the depths of my anger, but as Blake began cursing behind me as we ran, he got as close to voicing them as possible.
We dove into the dark without any need to discuss it. Because it wasn’t a choice we had to make.
Tatum had agreed to belong to us, but perhaps she hadn’t realised the depth of that promise as she’d made it. She’d bound herself to three monsters and we were bound to her just as surely in return.
We might own her, but she owned us too.
And a woman capable of wielding three demons was something to be feared. Especially by any creature who might hurt her. Because if we found her with a single hair on her head out of place, we’d do far more than rain down hell on the perpetrator. That would be a mercy by comparison.
Strong hands grabbed me from behind, one slithering up my bare stomach and making it to my breasts. I threw my elbow back with a shriek of defiance and Merl lost his grip on me with a curse. I darted forward once more, the only light around me the one he was using on his phone to find me. It was a blessing and a curse. Because so long as I could see, so could he.
I raced past tomb after tomb, the scent of death everywhere as dust rose into the back of my throat and made me wanna hurl. The hilt of the knife dug into my hand so hard it hurt.
Just keep going.
Run as fast as you fucking can.
&nbs
p; My foot caught on a step and I lurched forward as the ground beneath my feet climbed, my fingers grazing the concrete for half a second before I managed to keep going. Sweat dripped down my spine. The air was frozen but my skin was on fire.
The tunnel suddenly split ahead of me and I wheeled to the left at random, immediately crashing into a wall. I screamed as he grabbed me, turning in his arms and throwing fists, scratching, clawing. I slashed the knife at his arm, but he caught my wrist and slammed it back against the cold stone, making my heart lurch in fear. His phone was wedged in his jeans’ pocket, the flashlight sticking out the top so it glared at me.
I refused to ease my grip on the knife as he bashed my wrist against the wall again and again.
I won’t let go. Not ever!
His free hand dropped between us to the edge of my waistband and my heart nearly combusted. I needed a plan and one came to me as I called on my training with my dad, drawing on everything I’d ever learned and begging it to take over my actions.
I dropped the knife, letting it clatter to the ground and as his gaze shifted to it, I threw my knee up between his thighs, catching him right in the balls.
He roared in anger, backing up as he clutched his junk and howled in pain. I dropped down, grabbing the knife as I darted past him and his fingers yanked out a few strands of my hair as he tried to catch me.
I sped down the other passage, my breathing ragged as I raced on into the darkness at a furious pace.
The tunnel started to climb and I could have cried as a hint of moonlight called to me up ahead.
“Tatum!” Monroe’s voice reached me and a glow of light from his phone showed me how close he was.
My heart lifted with pure, desperate hope. He’d actually come for me. And somehow, he’d found me.
“I’m here!” I panted as I raced towards him.
He lifted his phone and I squinted against the brightness, suddenly crashing into a solid iron gate. A metal clang rang out, reverberating through the entire tunnel.
Kings of Quarantine: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 1) Page 48