The Rebel King (All the King's Men Duet #2) - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,14

group of Grims going into battle.

The sight should reassure me, but nothing will put me at ease until I can touch her. Until I can feel Lennix’s heart beating against mine again, confirmation that she’s gotten out of this alive.

“You remember what you’re supposed to do?” Grim slots a knife inside his boot.

“Yeah. Wait here like a neutered Cocker Spaniel.”

“You want her back?” Grim asks, not looking up from the watch he’s been checking since we left D.C. headed for Costa Rica. It shows 3:022:02 and counting down. Just over three hours. All Nix has left, if that shitbag sticks to his timetable. He doesn’t strike me as the type to back down.

“Yeah.” I look up at the overcast sky, primed for storms and reflecting my own uncertainty, the turbulence whirring inside of me. “I want her back.”

“Then follow the plan. You wanted the gun, you got it. For once in your damn life, fall back and follow orders. Leave this to the guys actually trained to do it. What are your orders?”

I grit my teeth, unused to following anyone else’s lead. “If I see a bad guy,” I say stonily, “shoot him.”

“And?” He cocks one thick eyebrow at me, looking very The Rock-ish.

“Don’t get my ass killed.”

8

Lennix

“Get up!”

Abe’s barked order makes my heart somersault and my belly flop.

Is it time? I have no concept of how long it’s been since he recorded that video and flipped an hourglass on my life. I’ve felt the sands falling, every grain piling up, taking me closer to a gruesome end. Now that I’m facing my own death, I want to comport myself with honor—to die unflinchingly. For my enemy to see war in my eyes even as the life drains from them. How did my ancestors feel with an army ahead of them and certain death behind? The warriors at The Leap, who jumped from a cliff instead of surrendering? Did panic crawl up from their bellies, the insidious thief of courage? Or were they brave, resolved until their last breath?

In the near-dark of the cave, I hope there is just enough light for this monster to catch defiance in my glare when I stand and look at him.

“You, too, Doctor Murrow.” He kicks Wallace’s leg and flicks his head toward the opening of the cave, swinging his automatic rifle between us. “Move.”

Wallace stands, and we share a quick confused glance.

“I said . . .” He pokes Wallace in the hip with the gun. “. . . move.”

We take a few cautious steps toward the mouth of the cave. Is there a camera out there? Will he shoot me out in the open? Will he make Wallace watch? I have no idea what’s about to happen. Fear claws through my skin and anxiety leaks from every pore. Wallace stretches his cuffed hands toward mine and gives my fingers a reassuring squeeze.

Outside, I squint against the sudden brightness of the sun. Nixon stands with the six other men who have shadowed our every move, traveling with us since the brothers intercepted our Jeep on the narrow mountain trail.

“Where’d you say you saw movement?” Abe asks, his big body deceptively relaxed. I sense tension coiled in his every muscle, tightening every line even though on the surface, he seems almost indolent, his blue eyes placid behind the mask.

“Down there,” one of the dark-haired men replies in heavily accented English, pointing toward the river barely visible through the tall trees and tangled foliage below. “I counted ten men.”

I hold back a gasp of relief. Movement? Ten men? Has someone found us? Has Maxim found us? I caress my compass charm, a touchstone for the dregs of faith I’m drawing from.

“Ten, you say?” Nixon frowns. “We gotta move then.”

“Yup,” Abe agrees. “And we need to travel light. You know what that means.”

“Plan B?” Nixon asks flatly.

“Plan B.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” Abe fires in quick succession, shooting each of the three men to his left in the forehead. In a cruel choreography, Nixon executes the three other men with clean shots through their foreheads, too. The men fall like dominos, some still wearing the wide-eyed, gaping-mouthed expressions of sudden death.

“Shit!” Wallace shouts. He closes his eyes, clamping his lips together so tightly, a white ring forms around his mouth.

I swallow a sob, refusing to show Abe and Nixon my horror, my terror. I deaden my eyes, focusing on a point above where the mountain range kisses the sky. I even suppress the hope springing in my heart at