The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood #14) - J. R. Ward Page 0,4

braided runner that led down the narrow hall. At the far end, there was an oval oculus, and peachy illumination from the exterior security light above it bled in and got sliced into quadrants by the divides of its panes.

Of the six suites, five doors were open.

She went to the one that was shut and knocked. When a soft “Hello?” came, she cracked the panels and leaned in.

The little girl sitting on one of the two twin beds was working the tangles out of a doll’s head with a brush that was missing a number of bristles. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her loose dress was handmade of a blue material, well-worn, but with seams that had stayed strong. Her shoes were scuffed, yet tied carefully.

She seemed very small in what was not a very large space.

Abandoned not by choice.

“Bitty?” Mary said.

It was a moment before pale brown eyes lifted. “She’s not doing well, is she.”

Mary swallowed hard. “No, sweetheart. Your mahmen isn’t.”

“Is it time to go say good-bye to her?”

After a moment, Mary whispered, “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

TWO

“Are you fucking kidding me!”

As Hollywood’s massive body and stupid frickin’ pea-brained head broke rank and took off toward the dorms, Vishous was of half a mind to run after the guy just so he could beat the living shit out of his brother. But nooooooooooo.

You couldn’t snatch and grab a bullet after the trigger had been pulled.

Even if you were trying to save the piece of fool lead from its grave.

V whistled into the night, but it wasn’t like the rest of the fighters weren’t also watching the bastard’s backside go bat-out-of-hell rogue.

Members of the Brotherhood and the other males exploded free from behind their covers of trees and outbuildings, falling into wing formation behind Rhage, guns up and daggers ready. Shouts from the enemy announced that the attack was noticed almost immediately, and everyone was only halfway to goal when lessers began streaming out of doorways, wasps from the hives.

Cluster-fuck much? Hollow pops! sounded as Rhage discharged his weapon all over the place, nailing slayers in the face, his big-bore bullets blowing out the backs of those skulls and dropping the undead into tangles of writhing arms and legs. Which was great—but couldn’t possibly last as the slayers sought to close off behind the guy, isolate him, and create a second front line against the rest of the brothers.

Thank you, Mr. Premature Charge and your early-work-release, independent-study project that bent over the plan they’d worked on for nights.

Total chaos took over, although unlike Rhage’s bolt, that was expected: Just as you could trust every hand-to-hand combat to eventually end up on the ground, you could guarantee that the best-planned attack would, after a while, spin into the land of goatfucks and goddamn-its. If you were lucky, that inevitability took some time to land on your head, and your enemy sustained crippling losses beforehand.

Not with Hollywood around

Oh, and P.S., when someone tells you you’re going die tonight, how about you don’t run headlong into a triple digit of your enemy? You fucking asshole.

“I was trying to save you!” V hollered into the fight. Just because he could now that their covers were blown.

Rhage was such a hothead. And knowing this, V should have confronted the idiot back at the mansion, but he’d been too distracted getting his own shit together to plug into the vision. It wasn’t until he’d gotten out to the abandoned campus that he’d blinked a couple of times … and realized, yes, this was when it happened for Rhage. Tonight. In this field.

Keeping quiet about it would have been like putting a bullet into the guy himself.

Of course, saying something had worked out so fucking well.

“Fuck you, Hollywood!” he yelled. “I’m coming for you!”

’Cuz he was going to get that bitch off this field if it was the last thing he did.

V held his fire until he got within a ten-foot range of his first target—it was either that or run the risk of hitting one of his brothers or another of their fighters. The lesser that he bull’s-eyed was one with dark hair, dark eyes, and the kind of aggression you’d find in a grizzly bear: lumbering with a lot of spit spools. One bullet into the right eye socket and the bastard was good as lawn on the ground.

There was no stabbing the thing back to the Omega. Vishous jumped over the still-moving, but no longer mobile, piece