Primal Pursuit - Page 165

Without another word, we make it to the storage, and I’m right. I shut the door and turn on my flashlight. Locating a lamp, I switch it on and put the flashlight away.

It’s an office. A base. And there’s the safe.

“Keep an eye out.”

I don’t look at Rabbit as I drop in front of the safe. I’m not a gifted safecracker, but I have moderate skills, and tools to help. I’m not wearing Kevlar, just a special vest that holds various tools of my trade, and I set about cracking the fucking safe.

The longer it takes, the more danger we’re potentially in, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Finally, the safe clicks, and I go to open the door.

That’s when I hear the click behind me.

The click of a gun.

I let out a breath and almost smile. “Fuck, Rabbit. You never disappoint.”

“Hands up,” she says. “Or I’ll shoot you right now.”

Chapter

Thirty-Two

POPPY

I’m shaking.

I want to shoot him. I do. I just can’t quite pull the trigger.

My heart is beating impossibly fast, my skin clammy and cold. There’s this buzz between my ears that makes it hard to think straight.

This shouldn’t be hard. Not for me. I know how to handle a gun. I know how easy it is to apply a little pressure on the trigger and…shoot.

“You gonna shoot me in the back, Rabbit?”

I raise my aim a little higher, pointing my gun at a man who isn’t Davian, one with a sandwich in one hand and a flask in the other, an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips.

The man raises his hands. Davian doesn’t.

“Rabbit?”

His voice is cool, low, questioning, and the man is trying to work out his move. I’m a livewire of nerves, and though Davian doesn’t reach for his gun, he turns, right as the man startsto move.

“I wouldn’t,” Davian says. He takes in the scene and stands. “She’s a little shaky, but she’s lethal.”

I swallow. The guy has his eyes on Davian now, and that makes me think a little clearer, makes me grip the gun a little tighter. I’d protect him. I would. I can feel it, the killer instinct to protect what’s mine.

“Problem is, you’ve seen my face, so…”

Davian moves. It’s a fluid display of deadly beauty. The man drops the flask and sandwich and is going for his gun as Davian takes mine and shoots him. Twice in the head, one eye gone, and matter splatters backward. The body falls and, without a word, Davian hands me back the gun, goes down, and sweeps a file, papers, and a hard drive from the safe.

He gets his gun and leaves.

For a moment, I don’t move.

He thought I was going to shoot him, and he didn’t go for his gun. He just stayed there, offering me his back without attempting a fight. Then he shot the other man dead. Cleanly. Calmly. Efficiently.

I try to breathe slowly, to calm myself, but it doesn’t come. What am I going to do? Davian is darkness, yet he draws me closer, pulls me toward him like he’s got his own devastating gravitational field.