Vicious Rebel (82 Street Vandals #2) - Heather Long Page 0,38

face, though pain sliced at my arm.

Stinky let out a roar, and though his hand on my arm loosened, he hadn’t by any means let me go. He struck out blindly and I ducked the first swing, but he yanked me toward him and then nailed me with the back of his hand.

Pain bloomed against my face as I banged into the counter.

It was still a win though, since he let me go. He roared as he charged at me, and I had two choices—fight him or get away.

Yeah, fight wasn’t really an option. The guy was twice my size.

I hopped up onto the counter and then, holding on, I slammed both of my feet into his chest. Between his rush forward and my momentum, I managed to absorb some of the shock of his charge, even as I drove my feet into his gut.

The chest might have been better, but I was aiming for his diaphragm under the layers of flab. His air whooshed out of him with a wheeze, and I rolled sideways, trusting my own balance and ignoring the glass I hit on the counter to get away from him. I was on the other side of him and closer to the door to the outside.

Not ideal, but better than nothing.

I bolted for it.

He got a hand around my ponytail. Pain lit up my scalp as he hauled me backwards. I swore some strands tore loose, and then all of a sudden, his grip on me was gone and I stumbled forward, barely catching myself on my hands before I fell on my face.

A gurgle of sound filled the narrow kitchen galley, and I twisted, hands braced against the floor, ready to snap my foot out and kick again. This time, I’d go for his groin. Should have done that in the first—

Something warm splattered against my cheek. The guy’s face had already been bloodied and burned from me hitting him with the coffee pot, but it was Rome who had him down on the ground.

Silent.

Vicious.

Delivering a brutal beating as he rained punches down on the guy’s head and face. Something crunched, the bone making a sickening kind of wet noise, and the guy just…stopped.

Everything stopped.

Even Rome paused with one hand on the guy’s throat, the other raised in the air. Blood spattered the cabinets, his shirt, his fists, and the floor. It puddled out where it trickled between the splashes of burnt coffee and broken glass.

Blazing, fury filled eyes locked on mine. I swore they burned where they stroked over me, and without a doubt, Rome’s gaze seemed to blast through the layers of clothing as though he could see right down to my marrow.

“How much of that blood is yours?”

The question floated in the air so softly, I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard him right.

“None. I think.” To be honest, nothing hurt.

The door behind me jerked open, and Rome glided, fucking glided, to his feet like a dancer, picked me up, and put me behind him as he faced the door. The flawless execution stole my breath. I’d known he fought like a fallen angel that night at the playground, but I hadn’t truly seen him move.

Not like this.

The line of muscle blocking my view relaxed a fraction, and I leaned around him to find Kestrel standing there.

Then the door behind us, the one into the office, slammed open, and I jerked around and backed right into Rome, who had his arms around me. He tucked me between him and Kestrel as another familiar blond head appeared.

“Fuck.” Liam’s voice crashed through the room, and the world slowed. Kestrel’s hands settled on my shoulders, and he turned me to him. Like Rome before him, he looked me over.

“You bleeding anywhere, Sparrow?”

“I don’t think so.” It took me far longer to get the words out. “I broke the coffee pot on his face. Some of the glass might have gotten me. The coffee was still hot.”

“He’s dead.” Liam’s voice pulled me around, and I stared at where he was kneeling, careful of the blood, and had two fingers to the neck of Stinky with a ruined face.

Because his face was ruined.

It was so much meat.

My stomach revolted, but before I could even process that, a finger tugged my attention back to Kestrel.

“Eyes on me, Sparrow.” The soothing, soft tone seemed perfect for the silence bearing down on all of us. “Clean that up.” The last he said over my shoulder, then his gaze was on me. “Sparrow,