Kings of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #1) - Caroline Peckham ,Susanne Valenti Page 0,212

Because if I did, I was going to have to fight for my damn life.

I ran uphill as fast as I could, sprinting flat out towards the church spire I could see poking out above the trees beyond the lake.

My heart was thrashing with panic and my muscles burned with an electric energy which begged to be set loose on these fuckers who had come to destroy our bubble of sanctuary.

At the last staff meeting, we’d discussed the idea of looters trying to come up here now that the stores were running so low on essential supplies, but Brown had been convinced that we were nowhere near the point at which that would be a concern. Well now look. Look what had come from being underprepared and overestimating the good in people.

I should have known better. I’d seen first hand how ruthless people could be when it came down to it. At the end of the day, when someone was backed into a corner, all of their morals went out the window. Even the sweetest little old lady would cut your throat if it meant her grandkids didn’t starve to death. It was the human condition. And I couldn’t claim to be any better. All I could claim was that I didn’t have a single soul in this world to look out for like that aside from myself. Or at least I’d thought I could claim that. Until Tatum Rivers had called on me begging for help.

I couldn’t remember the last time someone had needed me like that. Hell, I couldn’t think of a single other person in the world who would even consider calling me. Let alone calling me first. So either Tatum was just as alone as I was in this godforsaken place or she actually trusted me more than anyone else.

I didn’t know if the idea of that terrified or thrilled me, but I did know there was no fucking way I was going to let her down.

I didn’t know what the fuck had happened during that call, but the screams had been enough to send my imagination into overdrive. I’d started running for The Temple instantly and as I’d closed in on it I’d finally remembered something that could help me. I could see exactly where she was using the GPS tracker on her watch. And as I checked it again, my heart leapt as I saw that she’d made it out of the church.

She was heading east, away from The Temple and moving towards the lake.

I adjusted my path, turning slightly so that I could intercept her, leaping off of the path and into the trees as I ran on.

Thorns and brambles snagged at my sweatpants, one of them catching the bottom of my T-shirt and ripping it as it scored a line of blood across my stomach, but I didn’t slow.

I gripped my phone so tightly that I was afraid I might crack it, my teeth clenching as I checked the dot marking her location again and again.

I was getting closer. Three hundred meters, two hundred, one…

I stumbled to a halt near a cluster of boulders between the trees and spun around as I searched for her.

It was eerily quiet in the woods, only the distant shouts of the looters at The Temple breaking the silence at all.

“Tatum?” I called, not too loud but loud enough for her to hear if she was anywhere near me.

There was no reply and my heart pounded as I fought to catch my breath, straining my eyes in the moonlight that filtered down through the trees as I tried to spot her.

“Tatum?” Louder this time, but she still didn’t reply and I fought really fucking hard not to give in to the panic that rose in me.

I glanced down at my cellphone and my heart leapt as the dot marking her location was showing further away from me again. But that didn’t make sense. There was no way she could have passed me out here without me seeing her. No way.

Unless…

I looked down at the ground beneath my feet, remembering the time I’d found the old entrance to the catacombs beneath the church which opened out down by Sycamore Beach. The tunnels burrowed all over this side of the hill. I’d thought that I might be able to sneak into The Temple to search through Saint’s things by using them to get into the old church, but of course he had it gated off and locked up half