Page 93 of Hunt Me

We break from cover.

Bullets punch through the drywall beside us. Alexi fires backward without looking. Buys us three seconds.

Erik provides cover from the pillar. Two more agents drop.

Maya stumbles ahead with Dmitri supporting her weight. They hit the south corridor first.

My lungs burn. Legs pumping. Alexi’s hand locked around mine.

The loading dock door looms ahead.

Twenty feet.

Ten.

Something slams into my shoulder.

The impact spins me sideways.

My shoulder explodes with pain.

Alexi’s grip rips free.

I hit the concrete floor hard. I can’t breathe or think past the white-hot agony radiating down my arm.

“Iris!”

Hands grab me and lift me.

Not Alexi’s.

Someone’s dragging me backward. Away from the loading dock. Away from?—

“Let her go!” Alexi’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears.

I twist to see who’s got me.

They are wearing black tactical gear with a federal badge on the vest. The agent hauls me toward the main corridor, using me as a shield with a gun pressed against my ribs.

“Stand down or she dies!”

My vision blurs. The shoulder wound throbs, and blood soaks through my shirt—warm and sticky.

Alexi stands fifteen feet away. Gun raised. Aimed at the agent’s head.

But he can’t take the shot without hitting me.

Erik flanks left. Dmitri right. Both have their weapons drawn, but the same problem blocks them.

Me in the middle.

“Drop your weapons!” The agent backs toward the entrance. Reinforcements are somewhere close. “Federal agents! Drop them now!”

Alexi’s finger doesn’t move from the trigger. “You’re not walking out of here with her.”

“Then she dies.”

The gun digs harder into my ribs. I gasp.