Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

guy collapsed on top of the sink, all flailing limbs and panic. His leg started fountaining blood, the main artery severed, and as he tumbled off the kitchen counter in his personal world of hell, Slater shot him in the side of the neck.

He glanced sideways and saw King observing proceedings. As soon as King recognised Slater had a handle on the situation, he ducked back to the front entranceway, likely to return suppressing fire at whoever was advancing up the sloping hill that comprised the front lawn.

Slater took stock.

His face was a mask of sweat, his heart thudding over triple-time, but his hands weren’t shaking. He had total control of the adrenaline response, channelling it into supreme focus.

He turned to Alexis and Violetta. ‘Armoury. Now. Go.’

They took off down the hallway the two intruders had emerged from. Slater stayed behind them, sweeping the hallway with the CQBR, but he found it empty. No one had accompanied the initial two intruders round the side. They’d been a small contingency designed to flank and confuse.

So Slater let them go.

He wheeled back to the kitchen and covered the window, anticipating the next wave.

He sensed King at the door.

Slater’s ears were ringing and his hearing was temporarily ruined.

He implemented box breathing — in for two seconds, hold for two, out for two, hold for two — and waited.

18

Violetta sprinted to the armoury door.

She had goosebumps the whole way down the hall. The side door at the end of the corridor hung half-open, and if anyone else came in they’d have a clear shot at both her and Alexis. They were sitting ducks without weapons.

She made it to the small room, opened the door and stepped in. It was dark but she didn’t bother taking the time to turn on the light. If there were scouts in the backyard it’d only alert them to her position. There was enough hallway light to faintly illuminate the racks of weaponry — carbines, submachine guns, and semi-automatic pistols.

She reached for one of the Heckler & Koch submachine guns — an MP5.

She heard Alexis’ footsteps behind her, sticking close.

And someone else’s footsteps.

She didn’t know whether to grab the gun or turn immediately. She went for the MP5, and a barrel pressed to the side of her head.

A voice whispered, ‘No, no, no.’

It was barely audible above her laboured breathing, but she froze up all the same. Behind her, Alexis was a statue.

Slowly, Violetta turned, so the barrel drifted to touch her forehead.

She faced a man with a mane of long black hair. He was tanned, maybe half-Hispanic, and powerfully built. He wore a Kevlar vest and tight black khakis.

Alexis inhaled sharply.

The long-haired man smiled at her like a jester. ‘I’m not so drunk now, huh?’

He kept his voice low, barely above a whisper, and Violetta’s stomach sank. A chill wriggled its way down her spine. There was only one reason he hadn’t executed them yet.

He was preserving them.

They were his reward for a job well done.

Alexis seemed to sense the stakes too. She bristled with pent-up energy. The Hispanic man noticed and raised an eyebrow. He licked his lips, took the gun away from Violetta’s forehead, and took a step back.

‘Go on,’ he muttered, still quiet. ‘Do what you think you can do.’

He was relishing this.

Violetta willed Alexis not to try anything. They were swimming out of their depth, dragged down by the sick current of overwhelming odds…

Alexis lunged at the man.

He kicked her in the ribs as she came in, his shin like a baseball bat. An audible slap emanated from the skin over her ribcage.

Alexis crumpled, all the fight sucked out of her.

Violetta’s blood ran colder. They were going to die here tonight, she realised.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to battle down the wave of helplessness. There was a chance she could lunge for the nearest weapons rack, get a pistol in her hands. The long-haired man would have to miss his first shot, maybe his second, too. Which was overall unlikely. But the alternative was worse. One hundred percent chance of death. Undebatable.

She tensed up to burst off the mark, and the man noticed. The confident smile returned. ‘Go on.’

The barrel of his gun was pointed at the floor, but now he raised it and aimed the dark maw at her face.

She froze up.

The door slammed open as a body crashed into it.

Someone spilled into the room.

All the long-haired man had to do was pull the trigger, an action that would take a few milliseconds at most, but he didn’t. He seemed utterly confident that Violetta was still preservable. If he dealt with this new threat, then Violetta was all his.

The spoils of war.

It was King who barrelled into the armoury.

He must have heard the slap of shinbone against ribcage. A cacophony of chaos erupted behind him, the noise of the mansion under siege. Gunshots, fired into the house from the hostile force and returned outward from Will Slater.

But all of that fell to the wayside as Violetta watched the love of her life charge into danger.

He’d shouldered the door open so he spilled into the room at top speed. The long-haired man whipped the gun around and fired a reflexive initial shot, which missed King’s head by what had to be inches. It was hard to tell in the lowlight, but Violetta didn’t see his head snap back, didn’t see blood fountaining from an exit wound.

Her heart was in her throat.

King returned a couple of shots, but he was on the move, charging with reckless abandon. The first shot hit the man in the Kevlar vest, and the second went just wide of his throat. Violetta realised King was frantic. She’d seen the same recklessness in him when they were threatened at the commune in Wyoming. He’d sacrificed his own wellbeing the moment he’d realised his partner and unborn child were in danger. He was doing the same here. Willing to take a bullet merely to cause a distraction.

But both men