Page 102 of Protective Love

We head down the street, and round the corner, leading us down another equally dark road with just as many abandoned buildings.

"They should think about turning this into a new location for Fright Night," I say, waiting for Kaleb to message Miles before we move forward again.

"That's what you're thinking about right now?"

"Yeah. Why? What are you thinking about?" I ask, glancing over my shoulder to look at him, genuinely curious as to what a psychopath like him thinks about on his way to torture and murder someone.

"Sophia," he states, tapping me on the shoulder as he walks past me towards the street that leads to Danny and his little minions. "If you want specifics, then I'm thinking about last night when she—"

I plug my fingers in my ears and start humming a random tune, blocking out whatever he was going to say.

"My arse is going numb," I whine, shuffling around in an attempt to get the blood flowing properly through my body again.

Kaleb yanks on my arm, pulling me back behind the bush we've been crouching behind for the last forty minutes.

"Stop complaining and man the fuck up," he growls.

"Just because I'm sensitive doesn't mean I'm less manly."

He glares at me, nostrils flaring.

"I swear to god, I'll leave you here alone if you say one more stupid fucking sentence, King."

I mimic zipping up my lips and throwing away the key, purely to piss him off without even saying another word, and when he punches me in the arm, I struggle to hold back my laughter knowing I succeeded.

Hearing the sound of metal clanging has all of the amusement draining from my body immediately.

My eyes dart to the bush in front of us as I try to look through the small gaps in the hedge to see where the sound came from.

"Left side," Kaleb whispers, just as the older man we saw earlier walks around the corner to the front of the factory we're staking out.

"Ready?" I ask quietly.

He nods, grabs his gun from his waistband and then gestures for me to go out before him.

Grabbing my gun, I stay crouched as I move out from behind the bush, silently moving through the dark towards the factory with Kaleb's hand resting on my shoulder to help me know where he is.

We stick close to the boxes and crates lined on both sides of the short road that leads to the front of the factory, and my eyes stay glued to the older man standing outside, lighting his cigarette.

As we get a good few feet away from him, we stop, watching him as he blows out clouds of smoke, lazily scanning his eyes across the area in front of him that's blanketed by the night sky.

Once he's finished smoking, he makes his way back towards the side of the building.

Before he reaches the corner, Kaleb and I quickly lunge towards him.

I wrap my arm around his neck and press the muzzle of my gun against his temple as Kaleb forces his into the man's mouth as soon as it opens in an attempt to make noise.

My arm tightens around his neck, and he starts flailing around, trying to fight us off.

I lean back to avoid a punch to the head, but I don't manage to move my legs out of the way before he kicks me.

I hiss in pain and purposely press my forearm further against his throat.

His hands slap against my arm, nails scratching at my T-shirt as he tries and fails to remove my arm.

As I continue to block his airflow, his attempts get sloppier until his body finally becomes limp in my arms.

Kaleb pulls his gun out, grimacing at the spit covering it.