Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
With the fluidity of dancers, they did a joint spin kick, both heels connecting with Valor’s jaw with such brutality he spun twice before he dropped to the floor.
Then they ran.
Before he and Valor even got to their feet, the white blurs were almost to the end of the hall.
“They got past us.” Zorion took aim with a taser arrow.
“No, don’t shoot them!” Valor yelled, rotating his jaw as if checking to be sure it wasn’t broken. “They believe this is their last shot at freedom.”
Zorion could understand that. He slung his bow behind his back as they sprinted after their ghosts.
I have a feeling this is a bad idea.
Chief Styles Sawyer
Zorion
The white-cloaked figures moved with unfathomable speed, legs moving as if they were mechanical. They never looked back, but the one taking up the rear was close enough to whisper orders.
“Bank left. Hard right in four. Ninety-degree left…now. Stairwell door, two meters.”
The one in front adjusted with perfection, pivoting at exact angles, skipping three and four steps at a time as they climbed the remaining floors with almost supernatural grace.
Zorion’s eyes widened.
“Damn, they’re fuckin’ coordinated.”
“Jo, we’re almost to the roof,” Valor said.
“Good. You got less than thirty seconds before the authorities breach.”
They shouldered through the rooftop access door.
Their chopper was awaiting them on the helipad with its blades already whirring.
He and Valor turned just in time to see one of the white cloaks rip an antenna pole from its mount and, without pausing, hurl it like a spear toward the aircraft.
It smashed through the pilot’s window, striking their pilot.
The body tumbled out of the other side like a sack of broken bones, wounded and unconscious but still alive.
“Fuck!” Zorion shouted.
The second figure leaped onto the chopper, and got behind the gun mount, and opened fire.
Hot lead beat across the rooftop, forcing him and Valor to dive for cover behind the ventilation ducts.
“Our pilot is down, and they’re hijacking the bird!” Valor yelled into the comms.
“Stop them!” Jo ordered.
“Oh, right. Why didn’t we think of that?” Valor muttered, staying low.
The engine hummed louder as the chopper rose a few feet into the air. Its skids scraped the ledge of the roof, the rotors whined as the figure in white over-adjusted.
Zorion shook his head. “I don’t think they even know how to fly the damn thing, Jo.”
“Shit,” Jo hissed. “It’s like they’d rather die than take any chances of being caught again.”
The chopper cleared the building and then took a hard nose dive, plummeting toward the ground.
Zorion didn’t wait.
He slung his bow behind him, sprinted to the edge, and leaped over the side.
Valor screamed his name but the howling wind was so loud he barely heard it.
The city lights and red and blue flashes from emergency vehicles blurred below.
Zorion stretched his arms out wide and the fabric snapped open on his wingsuit, catching the air.
He was a black hawk in full dive.
He descended, sleek and fast, cutting through the dark sky after the fleeing chopper.
It drifted toward the left, climbing into a corkscrew maneuver.
Zorion shifted with it, calculating and readjusting. But as the white cloak seemed to get his bearings, he got the chopper back on course.
Zorion realized he was losing them.
They were moving too fast and climbing too high. He wasn’t going to catch them.
Zorion gritted his teeth and yanked his bow from behind him.
He had one shot. One chance.
He flipped over, falling backward, pulled his last rappeler arrow, and aimed it toward the rooftop. He nocked it, pulled the bowstring as far back as he could, and fired.
Once released, hooks popped out of the arrow’s point and hooked onto the ledge of the building, locking with a magnetic clank.
Thank fuck.
Zorion would kiss Sable right smack on her lips for insisting he needed those.
Zorion’s body jerked as the line wrenched him in reverse, reeling him up the side of the building with the kinetic force of a piston firing under pressure.
He slammed shoulder-first onto the rooftop, tucking and rolling until he skidded to a stop.
Zorion didn’t even catch his breath before Valor was on him, grabbing him by the grips of his suit and yanking him close. Their foreheads met hard.
“Don’t you ever fuckin’ do that again,” Valor growled, voice thick with fury.
Zorion’s breath was ragged, not from exertion but from his cherished’s domination.
They both watched as the chopper vanished into the stars.
“They’re gone, Jo,” Zorion breathed.
Jo’s voice came back heavy with disbelief. “What in the actual fuck?”
Valor released his tight hold on him, but he didn’t step back.
“Can you question all of this crazy shit later, Jo, and secure us another transport…now.”
Jo sighed. “Yeah, hold tight.”
Zorion walked over to the ledge and stared at the smoke and flames still rising from the depths of the facility, it would take the authorities a while to make it up forty floors.
“They were like us, right?” Zorion muttered. “Taken and experimented on against their will.”