Page 12

In which we learn that people in glass rooms shouldn’t throw bullets. I mean, shoot. People in glass rooms shouldn’t shoot bullets.

Arabella…

Back when I was little, I could still hear the high whine of the mosquitos in summer when we were playing outside, the piercing sound warning me before they landed on my skin. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually been able to hear something that high-pitched. But the shrill buzz as something passes by me sounds just the same. The guard standing just behind me flies backward and I just catch a spurt of blood out of the corner of my eye before I spin around.

He’s lying on the ground, eyes staring blankly up at the translucent ceiling as blood drips from the hole in his forehead. Six more guards are dead in seconds, gore pooling on the pristine glass floor before the stunned guests begin shouting, scrambling away, glasses of brandy dropping in a spray of crystal as they shove against each other, trying to find cover.

A fist grips my ponytail and yanks my head back as I shriek. Anselm pulls me in front of him, wrapping an arm around my waist.

“Looks like the police caught up with ye already.” I make some sort of mindless snorting noise, a cross between a giggle and a sob. I’m giddy with relief and it’s ridiculous because he’s probably going to kill me before I can be rescued.

Anselm’s face is pushed against mine, his mouth right next to my ear. The rank scent of the vodka he’s been drinking makes me gag. “I will shoot a hole in her head big enough to put your fist through it if you don’t come in with your hands up, MacTavish,” he shouts. I freeze as he shoves the muzzle of his gun against my forehead.

At least it will be quick…

My shaking hand taps my leg and I remember it. The arrowhead in my pocket. It’s not big, maybe half the size of the palm of my hand. That must be why they missed it when they took me. I know it’s sharp as hell, I nearly nicked my thumb on it earlier. It takes agonizing seconds to slip my hand into my pockets, fingers curling around the stone.

“MacTavish, you have five seconds to surrender before I shoot the girl.” Anselm must be part lizard. He sounds eerily calm.

Where can I stab him before he shoots me?

Like an avenging angel, in comes Logan MacTavish, mockingly holding his rifle up and setting it on a table with exaggerated care. Still, the men around him are trying to back away, bright enough to know that even unarmed, this man is dangerous.

“A human shield, a wee bit cowardly, dinnae ye think, Anselm? I’ve heard you’re a huge fecking sharg, but to see it…” Logan shakes his head as if he’s genuinely disappointed.

To our left, a gout of flame shoots up, nearly as high as this glass cage suspended over the ocean, and I hear something that sounds like low thunder in a storm. It must be huge, though, because the floor rocks under our feet.

“You are insignificant,” Anselm says sharply. The gun is no longer pressed against my forehead and he’s firing at Logan. Screaming, I whirl and slash my little weapon, my arrowhead, against his hand holding the gun, the momentum sending the razor sharp stone across his neck and slicing through the side of his face.

Now he’s screaming, his hand pressed against the blood spurting from his neck, his eyes wide and uncomprehending that anything could hurt him . The bastard manages to keep hold of the gun and he fires again, trying to aim it at me and hitting a guest in the shoulder as he swings his arm wildly.

I should be brave. I should cut him again, make him drop the gun but my arrowhead is gone, dropped from my nerveless fingers and I’m staring at the river of gore spurting from his throat like a fecking eejit, frozen in place. There’s three percussive booms, three more bullets shot from his gun but none of them hit me and then I realize they’re not from Anselm’s gun, they’re from Logan’s.

He leaps over a table, knocking two screaming guests aside as he lunges for me, pulling me away from Anselm’s body, now sprawled face-down on the glass floor.

There’s a spray of blood across his face and bizarrely, it makes his hazel eyes even brighter.

“I got ye, lass.”

Logan…

She’s pale as a ghost and no surprise because every time I’m around her, I’m killing someone.

Getting my arm under her arse, I scoop her up and say, “Close your eyes now. Dinnae look.”

She doesn’t close her eyes. She watches as I spray the bleating, howling billionaires with bullets as I race for the door. There’s another explosion, likely Kai’s group breaching the front of the mansion and the first crack travels jaggedly through the insanely thick glass wall facing the ocean. I shoot until I’m out of bullets and then I pull my modified Mac-10 from my shoulder holster and fire again, this time at the floor.

“What are you doing?” Arabella gasps, her hands gripping my shirt.

“Get behind me and cover your ears,” I shout to make sure she hears me. Clever thing, she does what I ask immediately, no questions, no shrieking.

I place six more explosive rounds into the floor, watching the cracks spider webbing madly through the glass and then two more on either side of the crack buckling the front wall. The huge room shudders, roaring like a fallen beast and then the floor drops loose, taking what’s left of the screaming men with it.

Wrapping my arm around Arabella’s waist, I take three giant steps back. One more explosive round, right in the center where the wall connects to the roof… It sounds like the shrill screams of a thousand damned souls as the wall falls in three enormous chunks, slamming against the rocks below.

The entire hallway buckles and heaves as the last two walls tear free from the house. One enormous sheet of glass manages to hold its form and cartwheels its way down the front of the mansion, tearing chunks from the stone and steel as it goes. The spray of glass shooting upward is nearly high enough to shoot into the hallway.

It’s time to go.

Arabella’s safety comes first. With a last, gleeful look, I squeeze her waist.

“We need to run, sweetheart.”

Sharg - Scottish slang for a wimp or a coward