The Fortunates (Unfortunate #2) - Skyla Madi Page 0,82
the rifle over my shoulder, its thick strap parting my breasts.
“You’re not going out there in front of them.”
Kade grips my shoulders, levelling his face with mine, and his dark eyes soften. “Please. I need you to do exactly what I say.”
“I still don’t know how to shoot,” I point out. “I’ve never squeezed the trigger, remember?”
He touches my face. “There’s a large group of them. Point and squeeze the trigger. You’re bound to hit someone.”
“I want to speak to somebody!” Vince’s booming voice demands from the ground floor. “Someone in charge of this…operation.”
I jolt forward, toward Kade, but he keeps me at arm’s length.
“He knows!” I hiss. “Shit, Kade. He knows!”
“Relax, all right? I’ll sort it out.” Releasing me, he drops the bag to the floor and jogs from the room.
I follow closely behind him, moving as best as I can with the ridiculous gun that I have strapped to me. As Kade marches through the manor, Unfortunates and Fortunates alike pop out, carrying their weapons. Some are scared, others determined, and a few scatter back into rooms and lock the doors. At the bottom of the staircase, John Milano slides up next to us, dressed down in a pair of slacks and a sweater, a rifle ready in his hands.
“Where are your kids?” Kade asks him.
“They’re having a picnic a few hundred metres out from the Unfortunate camp.”
“Good.” Kade rakes his fingers through his hair. “If shit goes sideways, I need you to blast as many of these assholes as you can. If we want to get out of here alive, we’re going to need space.”
“Where’s your gun?”
“I can’t walk out there with a gun. They already suspect something is going on and a gun will only confirm it. We have three minutes before guns start going off at the Unfortunate camp. If we can catch them off guard, it’ll give us a fighting chance at getting past them.” Pausing before the doors, Kade turns around. “Pick a place to hide and stay there until you hear the guns. Once they go off, run and shoot anyone pointing a gun at you. We are now at war, people. If you want to live, you have to fight for your life.”
I glance over my shoulder and gape at the hundred or so people lined along the railing on the second floor. Where’d they come from? I wasn’t expecting so many people, but to have so many just from the one house is incredible. Half of them don’t have guns and that worries me.
“Get behind the door,” Kade orders, nudging me to the left of the huge double doors.
I scurry into place. So do the people on the second balcony, and so does John, and we hold our breath as Kade grips the handles in his large hands and tugs the doors open. They creak. I can’t control the thump of my heart in my throat or the tremble in my fingers as I hold the gun, my index finger resting on the trigger. With a nervous flick, I lick my lips and strain my ears to hear the conversation.
“Vince,” Kade greets, stepping out onto the stone porch. “What do you want?”
The tap of his shoes against the floor disappears and Vince’s voice is nothing but a murmur. Shit. I tilt my head back, resting it against the wall.
When do we run for it?
∞ Kade ∞
He wasn’t going to lie. He was nervous. It seeped from his palms and tightened his chest. It took everything he had to walk across the porch and down the steps with a false sense of informality. At the bottom of the four steps, Vince waited patiently, threading his fingers together in front of him. Kade stepped off the porch and onto a step, loathing Vince’s smug smile.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” Vince asked, tipping his head to the side.
His black eyes danced with delight.
Kade simpered, slipping his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “You look ridiculous wearing a hoodie with jeans.”
Tossing his head back, Vince laughed wholeheartedly, glancing over his shoulder as a few moderators snickered. “Did you just crack a joke? Now I know something is amiss.”
“Maybe you just caught me on a good day.” He forced himself to smirk.
His nerves waged a war inside of him as the seconds ticked down. Soon the guns would go off. When that happened, he wouldn’t know if Anna made it until he got to the Unfortunate camp.