Page 93 of Healing Conviction

Loud pops echoed through the warehouse and she slapped her hands over her ears, hitting herself in the head with the gun barrel so hard that she cursed. Although, being quiet wasn’t a big concern anymore, considering there were now sharp gunshots resounding throughout the metal building.

Everything happened all at once, but she watched as the men in front of her leaped from their positions. The man who’d been quiet earlier sagged to the ground, apparently Drake’s first casualty.

One of the men with a Russian accent jumped into action, despite having been seemingly asleep, and hid with the other Russian behind the truck. From her position, she could see them checking their guns and trying to assess where the shots had come from. She gripped tighter to the gun in her sweaty hand in case they saw her.

Thankfully, part two of Drake’s plan was possible, since the guy with the box had let it spill to the ground. He was clutching his shoulder and scrambling on the ground to join the two Russians behind the truck.

The drunk one was swinging around the vodka bottle with one arm and his gun with the other. He sprayed bullets widely in Drake’s direction. Nora hoped with every fiber in her being that he had terrible aim.

Pingsand the sound of metal ricocheting against metal told her Drake had shot the lock on the container door. Loud pops and hisses filled the cacophony as Drake picked off the tires one-by-one. From what she could see, each one got hit a few times before it began to deflate, until the container on top finally began to sink as a unit.

“That way, no matter what happens to us, they can’t leave with the women.”

It’d been a good plan. Erm, okay, maybe amediocreplan. But the two Russians were obviously skilled and were already fighting back. They stayed positioned behind the eighteen-wheeler, frustratingly still in her view, but not in Drake’s.

What does this mean? Should I shoot them?

Indecision warred in her mind as she watched the large tires lower and the guy with the arm injury join the other three in hiding. The one with the bottle kept shooting wildly but now the obviously more skilled Russians had joined him. Even the injured one seemed to be loading his gun.

Drake’s position was getting flooded with bullets. There was no way he was getting out of this without any new wounds.

What if he gets hurt? Will I have to watch him die again? What will I do? What should I do?

Her promise rang in her mind and she cursed herself. It’d been his plan to take out the men so she could run for the rubber box of syringes Drake wanted, then they could both hightail it out of the warehouse through the far-off security door.

But if Drake needed her, if he couldn’t fend them off…

A hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her around, pushing her back against the shelf before another hand slapped over her mouth. Drake’s dark ocean eyes widened at her as he held a finger to his lips. He glanced down at her gun and back at her before silently shaking his head, like he’d known she was thinking of coming to his aid by firing her gun. She nodded and wrestled back control from the adrenaline that’d been making her mind run wild.

Drake was there, alive. She hadn’t had to step in. He was unharmed, and from the look in his eyes, steady as a rock. A numbness took over, and she blanked from anything but his plan.

Trust him. Focus on the plan. Nothing else. Just the task at hand.

Trauma responses burned over her body like water popping on hot oil. Her hands tremored and her heart threatened to beat out of her chest, but she’d been given orders. She could follow them and shut down all her fear. Turns out, being good at dissociating wasn’t always a curse.

Drake tilted his head to the side, indicating that she run to the opposite end of the aisle, where he’d been shooting from. Gunshots rang at the end, but she trusted him. She nodded once before running and hiding behind a pallet of packages.

Shots echoed from the direction she’d just fled, and a man cried out in pain.

Drake…

No.

The gunshots switched from her new position to Drake’s. She took a chance and peered around the big packages, seeing the guns that had been peeking out from the end of the truck were now all facing toward Drake, near the warehouse garage doors. Praying quickly to all the entities, she crouched low and sprinted across the open aisle toward the eighteen-wheeler’s engine.

She waited a moment to make sure no bullets were fired her way. When she figured the coast was clear, she slid along the tractor unit with her backpack as flush to the metal as possible, crossing one foot over the other slowly until she reached the circle of upside down crates the men had been sitting on near the middle of the cargo container.

The crate the injured man had been sitting on was the perfect height for her to shield her body from view. She stooped low and glanced around before reaching for the handle on the red box. Its rubber casing made it skip across the cement, threatening to spill its contents, but the gunfight toward the end of the truck masked the noise. She resisted her curious nature to investigate what was inside, and closed it up, locking it with both latches. Staggering to stand again, she grunted from the added weight before flinging her back against the side of the truck again.

After a few more seconds of constant gunfire, Nora used her racing adrenaline to focus her mind and muscles in order to sprint back across the aisle, this time never stopping.

Alarmed shouts chorused behind her, followed by the slapping of shoes on concrete. But she kept running, aiming for the exit sign they’d passed on the way to the truck. Gunshots rang past her and she immediately realized her faulty plan. The center aisle was literally a straight-down-the-barrel shot, making her an easy target.

As soon as she could, she took the immediate left turn down a side aisle, running and hiding behind tall stacked pallets and forklifts. When she got to the end of the row, her only goal was to take the right-hand ninety-degree turn to get to the door, but a mountain of a man stopped her.

Strong arms gripped her and scooped her up, but immediately the pine, mint, and campfire scent she’d come to adore filled her senses, calming her. Drake sped past the last two aisles before dropping her in front of the security code pad at the door, steadying her with one hand and spraying bullets with the other. Clutching the box, she tugged her phone out of her pocket with her shooting hand, the sweat on her palms making the glass screen hard to grip.

“Unlock the door, Pix.” Drake’s backpack was flush against hers as he growled over his shoulder. His breath was ragged with every word.