Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,171

pilot exited too and they shared a few words then Saint nodded to him before climbing back inside, shutting the door and moving to take the pilot’s seat.

He tapped some buttons on the control panel then flicked some switches on the roof above him and suddenly we were taking off again with my beautiful sinner in the pilot’s seat.

“Fucking hell, Saint, this is like some Mission Impossible shit,” Blake crowed excitedly, and I shared a smirk with Kyan as his hand slid further up my leg, sending a buzz of adrenaline into my veins.

“Calm down, Double-0 Bowman,” Saint said, and there was a grin in his voice. “We can’t risk bringing anyone to Dr De La Cost’s home. I trust no one but the five of us. There’s not gonna be any shoot outs or evil masterminds.”

“Is that because you’re already the evil mastermind?” Blake asked and I snorted a laugh.

“Obviously,” Saint agreed.

“Well, we’re gonna have to trust that doctor too,” I pointed out.

“Hardly,” Saint scoffed. “I will blackmail her of course.”

“But you said she was squeaky clean,” I said in confusion.

“Yes, she is,” Saint said with a dark chuckle, but didn’t elaborate more than that. “I also just admitted I’m the evil mastermind. Keep up, siren.”

We flew for over an hour north and I rested my head against Kyan’s shoulder as I gazed out of the window beside him. The further north we went, the darker the world became as we left the towns behind. At one point I thought I caught sight of army trucks moving along the roads below and I guessed that had been Saint’s motivation to fly. Army checkpoints were popping up all over the country and though we’d exposed the inside of one of their little Hades Camps, I had the feeling that wasn’t going to stop more of them being erected. The situation in the world was getting too dire. And now things had gotten bad, extreme action was being taken by the government in every damn state. By fucking Troy. But splitting people up from their loved ones and dragging them out of their homes seemed barbaric to me. Our country had already lost enough. And it frightened me how quickly the authorities could take over. Sometimes fighting back felt impossible, but we were doing it. We weren’t going to lay down and let people like Troy Memphis and his shady friends from Royaume D’élite get away with what they’d done. They had to be stopped. And more than that, they had to be punished.

“Coming in to land,” Saint said, and we started descending towards the lawn of a lone house below surrounded by trees on either side of it, the lights beneath the helicopter illuminating the property.

We landed and Saint killed the engine, the propellers starting to slow as he flicked the lights off too and got out. We unbuckled our belts and exited the aircraft while Kyan pressed a gun into my palm. I slid it into the back of my jeans, figuring some doctor in the middle of nowhere wasn’t going to be much of a threat against five armed people who’d just landed a helicopter in her back yard. Lights were on in the house and a window flew open on the top floor, a shotgun wheeling out of it. Apparently I was wrong.

“Who are you?!” a woman cried, her voice laced with fear.

Saint raised his palms in innocence. “We have a proposition for you,” he called back, totally fucking calm. If I’d known this was his plan, I would have suggested we land the damn helicopter a mile away and walk here instead of freaking the woman out.

“Get off of my property!” she yelled. “I’ll call the police!”

“You know as well as I do, the police are too busy corralling the population into Hades Camps alongside the army,” Saint said as Kyan moved up behind him, using Saint’s body to conceal the gun in his hand. “And if they did happen to come, perhaps you would need to explain the fact that you have no license to bear that weapon.” His jaw ground, telling me he’d checked out that information thoroughly and hadn’t expected this.

This was seriously not the way to calm someone down who was holding a goddamn shotgun though. I stepped in front of my boys, taking the travel bag from Kyan and holding it up.

“Dr De La Cost,” I called up to her. “We need your help. I was given a vaccine to the