Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,118

nest up there.”

“Shit,” I cursed. “How’d you get past them the first time?”

“I didn’t come in this way,” he said. “They’ll have put a fuck load of soldiers on guard where I did come in because I caused one hell of a fucking stir.” He chuckled, but as curious as I was to hear more, there wasn’t time for that story. We needed to move.

“Well how do you know there’s someone up there?” I asked as I knocked his hand away from my chin.

“There’s always an asshole on a roof.” He shrugged.

“But how can you be sure?” I hissed.

“I’ll be sure when I’m choking him out and he’s begging for his mammy,” he said with a smirk. “I’m gonna head up there. When I give you the signal, run for the barricade. There’s a gap in it where the truck is parked. Oh, and throw this if things get ugly.” He placed a grenade in my hand and my throat tightened.

“Is it smoke or a bomb?” I asked.

“Guess you’ll find out if you have to use it.” He dropped a car key into my hand too. “My truck’s parked on Opal Street. Just in case I don’t make it.” He winked and darted across the road, leaving me behind before I got a choice in the matter.

“Wait, what’s the signal?” I whisper shouted after him, but he ignored me, using his screwdriver to jimmy the door open and slip inside. Crazy bastard.

I took a calming breath as I waited, keeping my eyes on the soldiers up ahead as I remained in the shadows of a doorway. I pocketed the key and the grenade, unsettled by the thought of Niall not making it out of this.

The seconds ticked by so slowly, I could almost hear them ticking in my head.

Come on Niall. Hurry up.

He suddenly started yodelling from the top of the roof and my lips popped open at the sound. The two soldiers on the ground looked up at the roof in alarm and ran forward into the front entrance of the building. I guessed that was the freaking signal, so I ran out of my hiding place, tearing up the street toward the truck. I slipped behind it, finding the gap in the barricade and looking behind me up at the roof. Niall was standing there yodelling at the top of his lungs and he suddenly threw himself over the edge.

A strangled scream left me just before a rope I hadn’t noticed snapped taught and he started rappelling down the side of the building. Jesus fucking Christ. He almost gave me a heart attack.

“Hey!” a soldier appeared on the roof, moving to lean over the edge and point a gun at Niall. “Stop or I’ll open fire!”

Niall let go of the rope six feet from the street, grabbing his pistol as he fell and shooting like a mad man as he hit the ground on his back. The soldier was forced to retreat, but Niall only had so many bullets and there was no way he was going to make it to where I was after that gun rang empty.

I cursed, making a decision as I pulled the pin on the grenade and aiming for the side of the building. It was either gonna blow a hole in it or offer Niall some cover. Either way, it might just buy him enough time to run. I threw it with a growl of effort and it hit the wall before exploding in a growing cloud of pink gas and glitter which filled the air fast.

Niall leapt to his feet just as his pistol ran out of bullets and gunfire tore through the air a beat later. But he was already in the growing cloud of smoke, running toward me, just a shadow in the fog. He burst out of it and half knocked me over as he shoved me through the gap, his hand latching around my waist so I didn’t fall.

I turned and ran with him down the street beyond the barricade and he let go of me so we could sprint, taking a hard right down another road between a row of houses. We didn’t stop running until our lungs burned and we literally couldn’t go a step further, my heart thundering against my ribs.

I buckled over as we hid behind a large van, dragging down heavy breaths. “Holy shit,” I panted, laughing wildly.

“That was fucking beautiful, Tatum. You really are Kyan’s girl,” Niall chuckled, clapping me on