and find the guard, barely in his twenties, dead on the floor.
Penny stands a few yards to his left, two more women close by her side, and another spread on the floor at her feet, her body and face shielded by the legs standing around her.
I edge my way toward them as I take in my surroundings—the floor-to-ceiling windows providing no protection from an outside threat, another archway at the far side of the room, and the extravagant furniture capable of hiding an enemy.
“It’s okay.” Penny collapses to her knees beside the prone figure, the other two women following suit from the opposite side of the motionless body. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Was she hit?” I back toward them, my gun and sight shifting between the open doorways. “Talk to me.”
My answer comes in the form of slowly building sobs. First one woman, then another.
“In the stomach,” Penny whispers. “She needs to get to a hospital.”
Fuck.
There are no hospitals. Not for this type of situation.
“Hunt, Deck, I’ve found them. But I need you guys to give me an update.” I reach Penny’s side and peer down at the woman on the floor who’s barely a woman at all, her face seeming more like an innocent child’s.
“I’ve got one asshole playing hide-n-seek over here,” Decker says. “But I think that’s the last of them on my side of the house.”
“One got away,” Hunt adds. “He scaled the fucking wall.”
“Did he see your fucking face?” I ask.
“Doubt it. The little bitch was running scared. I’m tempted to run after him.”
“No. We’ve gotta get out of here, and I’m going to need help moving these women.” Three of them at least. And the fourth who I left in the nearby bedroom. The fifth won’t be going anywhere.
There’s no saving her.
Blood seeps across the material of her silken nightwear, the building gurgle in her throat announcing the stream of liquid death about to spill from her lips.
Penny presses her hands to the woman’s abdomen, placing pressure on the wound. “We’re going to get you out of here, Chloe. We’re free.”
There’s confidence in her voice.
Unwarranted, unwavering confidence.
“She’s going to start choking.” I indicate for the blonde to move to the left with a jut of my gun. “Get behind her and lift her shoulders.”
Her trepidatious gaze darts between me and Penny before she finally scrambles to her knees to raise Chloe’s head onto her lap. Not that her compliance matters. The injured woman coughs, the first burst of blood spluttering from her mouth.
“Hold on,” Penny demands. “Keep fighting.”
More blood bubbles across porcelain skin, the gagging and choking increasing.
The two other women sob. Cry. Hyperventilate.
But Penny doesn’t lose her determination. She keeps pressing on Chloe’s wound, her fingers drowning in blood as the spluttering loses its ferocity, the wide eyes of the dying girl growing dull.
“Chloe,” Penny warns. “Stay with me.”
There’s nothing I can do, not one fucking thing, as Chloe’s soul quickly slips from her body. She gurgles with the blood suffocating her, her shoulders twitching, once, twice. Then she’s gone, her head slumping limp, the red stream of death still dripping from her innocent lips.
The other women wail, grasping at the deceased’s hands and face.
They beg. They plead. They sob.
All Penny does is stiffen.
There are no tears or weakness. She doesn’t show one ounce of vulnerability as she stares unblinking at her fallen sister.
The gunshot echoing from the other side of the house doesn’t even make her jolt. It’s the other women who scream and scramble to their feet to run for cover as heavy footfalls approach from the hall.
I step in front of Penny, shielding her, and aim my gun. A figure invades the doorway, tempting my trigger finger.
“It’s me,” Decker calls, withdrawing from view. “Don’t shoot.” He waits a heartbeat then re-enters as more thunderous steps carry toward us. “Hunter’s behind me.”
He takes in the sight before him with apprehension, his gaze sliding over the newest additions to our crew before settling on the corpse on the floor. “Is she dead?”
I nod. “Bullet to the gut.”
Hunter storms into the room, his attention following the same path as Decker’s. “We’ve gotta get out of here. The asshole who escaped could be calling backup.”
“Did we get any intel?” Decker asks. “Have the safes been checked?”
“There’s no time. I’m not willing to risk it.” I start for Penny and jut my chin toward the two other women cowering on the floor. “Hunt, you help them. Deck, you get back outside and grab the duffels. We