Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Whomever had designed it had done a great job, because there wasn’t anything that was going to stop that.
With only one thing left to do, I started running, catching the ladder with ease when I left the ground. The ladder that extended underneath the truck pulled down with my weight, and I climbed the damn thing like a tree as I reached for the door handle.
A helicopter sounded from above, but I paid it no mind as I felt the door give.
Then suddenly I was staring at a laughing Reign.
She looked over, her eyes lit with excitement and saw me.
“Oh, hey, Copper!”
This fucking bitch.
“Where’s Baker?” I snapped, fingers clenching on the bar that would allow you to haul yourself into the vehicle.
“In that car.”
Bile climbed up my throat. “What are you talking about?”
“I left her in there.” She smiled gleefully. “Copper, she took our baby away. I couldn’t allow her to get away with that.”
I’m not sure what came over me, but all of a sudden I couldn’t see straight.
A red mist clouded my vision, and blindly I reached out and yanked Reign out by her hair.
She shrieked at the sudden pain, and when her seat belt caught, holding her in her seat, I let go of the bar and reached for my knife.
It was in my hand and blade at the ready in seconds.
When her seat belt was sliced free, my anger completely took over.
With one brutal yank, she fell free of the armored vehicle.
Twenty-Five
Lactose tolerant.
—Text from Baker to Copper
BAKER
I’d survived.
How I’d survived, I didn’t know.
The car that had once been my pride and joy was now a jumbled mess around my body.
The front seat where I’d originally been sitting was now in line with the back.
The hood was damn near flat against the ground.
The back cargo area was also smashed to smithereens, leaving the only spot in the entire vehicle not completely crushed the back seat area.
There was also no way in hell I was getting out.
The windows, although no longer holding glass, were bent at an angle. The only way I was getting out was if I was the size of a three-year-old.
But what it did do was give me a great view of the action.
That action being Copper as he ran across the broken concrete toward the armored vehicle.
I didn’t even know what the hell it was.
It looked like something out of Mad Max. A huge, tractor, tank looking thing that could withstand a siege.
Copper catapulted himself in the air and caught the ladder on the backside of the vehicle.
In a few powerful tugs, he had his bulky body up onto the ladder and he was yanking open the door. His face appeared vicious, and even with the vehicle so far away, I could read the pure enraged anger on his face.
The armored vehicle turned slightly, causing him to disappear from view.
Sirens started to sound, and I closed my eyes as I hoped and prayed that Copper would get Reign and that vehicle under control.
A loud thwap-thwap sounded above me, and I wondered if we’d also garnered the attention of the evening news.
I pressed forward, my face against the gouged slit of a window, and gasped when I saw Reign’s body fall out.
Reign lunged to remove herself from the vehicle’s path, but it was too late.
She’d rolled underneath the vehicle where the momentum of her fall carried her right into the path of the moving tires.
I squeezed my eyes shut as the wheel neared her head.
She didn’t even have time to scream.
Shouting had me opening my eyes and I saw a sea of black.
The calvary had arrived.
Men in tactical pants swarmed the area.
The armored vehicle came to a stop.
Copper jumped free of the armored vehicle and he swung his gaze toward my Suburban.
I saw the moment his face registered how messed up the car was.
That there was no way that I could survive.
The utter devastation on his face would stay with me for the rest of my life.
I hastily stuck my arm out the mangled mess of a window, and I saw the moment he comprehended what he was seeing.
I’d never forget the smile that lit his face, either.
The utter relief that washed over him as he hauled ass toward me.
He came to a stop about ten feet from the wreckage, and his face completely changed again.
“Don’t.”
I pulled my arm back and glanced behind me, but there was no hole for me to see out of on the other side. So I couldn’t see what Copper saw.
“Put the lighter down.”
“Fuck you!”
“Put the lighter down, man,” Copper repeated. “This place is swarming with cops. You’ll never get away.”
“I don’t need to get away!”
That’s when I comprehended who was on the other side.
Joey.
What the fuck?
“Don’t,” Copper repeated.
“I don’t understand why you can’t just let me be,” Joey snarled.
“Sir,” I heard one of the officers I couldn’t see say. “Back up. Now.”