One Hundred and Thirty-Six Scars(89)

“What, are you doing here, Meadow?”

“What are you doing here?” I shoot back at her.

“I couldn’t just sit around and wait for their genius plan. Beast is in there alone,” she offers sadly.

“I know,” I say, dropping the duffel bag. “Are we going in?”

She nods her head. “I am, but if something happens to you, Beast will kill us all. I can’t have you with me.”

Narrowing my eyes, I shake my head. “Are you kidding me? There’s no way I’m sitting out here waiting. I am coming with you, Jada. Don’t fight me on this.”

She pauses, searching my eyes. “Fuck, I am so dead for this. All right, so here’s the plan. We go in and clear the outside, Hella said that Beast is hitting the basement to light the place up with the explosives they have down there. He can ignite it from outside the building, but we need to clear it out for him. He will have had to fight his way out and around that place, who knows what condition he’s in. He’s supposed to meet the boys under the old tower.”

Nodding my head, I clutch onto the stem of my bow. “Okay, got it.”

She looks at my bow and smiles. “I hope you’re prepared to use that?”

I drop my eyes and shrug. “I had Beast get me Taser arrows. It knocks them out for a few hours.”

Her face scrunches as she shakes her head in disbelief. “You are so not prepared for what’s about to happen,” she answers absently.

“Hey, I have seen some shit too you know. I watched my dad get murdered and enjoyed it. Trust me, I’m not a soft little butterfly.”

Her head tilts. “There’s more to this, I can tell.”

“How do you think Beast and I met?”

“Huh, maybe one day you can tell me,” she offers with a small smile.

“Maybe. Let’s go.”

We both shuffle out from behind the bushes, keeping our eyes locked on the building in front of us.

“It’s huge,” I say in a whisper.

She nods her head, our shoes crunching over the stone gravel road. “You have no idea. Follow my lead and be ready.”

I nod my head, swallowing past the ball of nerves. I’m terrified about what could happen, but I know I’d do almost anything for Beast. That includes walking into a death trap apparently.

Running across the road, we kneel down and begin moving along the wire fence. “How are we going to get in?” I whisper to her as we shuffle along the fence line.

She looks at me over her shoulder, smiling. “No doubt Beast added the same hole as he did when they escaped the first time, and when they rescued me.”

“Right, okay.”

We continue our shuffling along the fence line, my breathing deep and ragged from anticipation and fear.

Jada stops, placing her hand on the corner of the fence, pushing until a hole comes through. I smile, shaking my head. “How the hell did Beast fit through that?”

She pushes it more and it stretches double.

I smile. “Ah, that’s how.”

Jada slides through first with me following closely behind her. Standing on my feet, I load up my bow, having it sit armed on my hand before we continue walking toward the main building that sits in the middle. To the far right corner, there’s a half tower that stands near a pile of rubble, showing that it once stood tall. I scan around the other side to see four buildings that look like identical houses which sit next to each other in a vertical line. If you peer to the back of the monstrous building that sits in the middle—where we are currently moving along with our backs pressed against the concrete—you can see a group of white tents that are scattered across the grass with a bonfire in the middle. There are armed people walking around the tents casually, chatting. Which is a good sign—I hope. Following Jada, who has her Samurai sword out, we round the first corner where two men are standing against the wall. Drawing up my bow, I aim it at the first man, shooting him right in the chest, his body drops to the floor in vicious fits. The other man who was standing beside him drops his cigarette and charges toward us. I load up again and shoot him quickly in the chest where his convulsing body joins his friends.

Jada turns to me, eyebrows raised. “Meadow, these are bad people, you have to let me at ‘em.”

Dropping my bow slowly, I nod. “I know, but it would’ve been unnecessary for them. They were an easy takedown.”

“Don’t do it again, let me have one.”

“You’re a little scary,” I mumble through a smile.

She laughs. “I’ve been told that all my life. Come on, we’ll round the building, get as many down as we can.”