around his neck as I spun him around, shoving him directly against the hallway wall. I pressed my knee into the small of his back. I choked his neck so tightly his gun dropped from his hand. I closed my eyes and dreamt of my favorite place as he shivered and trembled in my arms.
Then, I opened my eyes once he fell limp.
“Great,” I murmured to myself.
I dropped the man like a sack of potatoes and picked up the guns. With mine in my holster and his slid around behind my back, I charged down the hallway. I shoved open doors and stomped as loudly as I could, trying to see if I could get the girls to respond in any way.
But once I came to a door that had three locks on the outside, I knew I had found them.
Bingo.
I pulled the man’s silenced gun out from around my back and took three quick shots at the locks. Soft gasps and whispers sounded behind the door as it slowly fell open, revealing a small room with girls sitting and standing on every surface. Those who were sitting quickly scrambled to their feet. And as I scanned the crowd, my eyes fell onto a familiar woman.
A very busty, very angry, very scared woman.
“Ash, thank fuck,” Slash said.
I held up my hand. “Until we get you guys back, I call the shots. Got it?”
Slash nodded. “Got it.”
My hand fell to my side. “Good.”
“Uh, someone’s been trying to get in through the window?”
A very annoyed voice caught my ear and I turned my head toward the sound. And when I first laid my eyes on her, my heart stopped in my chest. With eyes the color of honey and short, cropped hair dyed red, she looked like the epitome of “out of place.” With thick hips, round breasts, and clothes that clung to her every curve, I found myself incapable of looking away.
Until I heard a fist bang against the window.
“See?” the girl asked. “Like that.”
The sound snapped me from my trance. “Hold on.”
I pushed through the throng of girls and gripped the window with my fingertips. I wrenched up once and felt it cracking, but it didn’t budge. I gritted my teeth and yanked upwards again, and it actually moved. Slightly, at least. But after one last good tug upward, the window flew open.
Before Sly shoved his head in.
“I see you found them,” he said.
I nodded. “How are the guys?”
He shrugged. “Hell if I know. You want to get them out the window? Or…?”
The girl snickered. “My hips won’t fit through that window. You can mark my words.”
Sly clicked his tongue. “Yeah, well. Neither will your president’s breasts, so.”
Slash’s eyes widened. “Hey, now.”
The girl scoffed. “I’m not part of this crew. Slash is my cousin, and nothing else.”
Slash balked. “And nothing else? Really, Hannah?”
I sighed. “We can argue and die, or we can run and get out alive. What do you guys want?”
A random voice sounded behind me. “We want to live.”
I nodded. “Then, shut up and follow me. Sly?”
“Yeah, Ash?”
“Meet us around front. We’ll have to do one girl to a rider to get out of here.”
Even though I wanted nothing more than to take—what was her name, Hannah? —in my arms and kiss her stupid, I had to get her out alive first. With a renewed sense of purpose and vigor, I led the girls down the hallway. I cleared every corner we turned until we found our way out onto the porch where Sly waited for all of us.
But I still had this unsettling feeling in my gut.
“Did you see anyone else?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. You?”
“Not a damn soul.”
“You mean to tell me the only guy here is the one I took down in the hallway?”
Link appeared from the darkness. “Seems to be that way.”
Knuckles walked up behind us. “I don’t know. There’s something off about all of this.”
Bowser walked up beside me. “You find all the girls?”
I thumbed over my shoulder. “All of them are accounted for.”
Then, a bullet whizzed by my head.
“Get down! Now!” I roared.
Another muffled bullet whizzed by my shoulder and I turned around. I threw myself at Hannah, taking her to the ground as I covered her body with my own. Gunfire rained down upon us as I reached for the one on my hip. Ready to end the firefight these assholes had started.
“To our bikes!” Link exclaimed.
With one arm wrapped around Hannah, I pulled both of us up from