Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
I dove to my stomach next to Bones. I propped up my rifle and looked through the lens. Bones searched through his binoculars. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuckers are everywhere.”
One soldier, then another, fell to the ground as they were hit. Blood poured from their arms and legs, and I felt myself fucking burning with anger. “Bones, get me a fucking kill,” I snarled and focused through my lens.
I saw the men on the ground, and my anger burned even brighter when I saw they were two of Devin’s men. “Oorah!” Bones shouted, the cry of the Marines and ducked down beside me.
“North,” Bones said. I switched my gun in that direction. “West, two clicks.” My nostrils flared when I saw the prick with the RPG come into focus. The world fell away.
I lined up my shot with the fucker’s skull. “Target on.” The hot wind blew against my face, the sun burning the skin. And I waited. I waited until . . .
“Now!”
I pulled the trigger.
Shouts went up around him as he dropped off the post he held and smashed to the ground.
“Direct hit,” Bones said, then, “Shit! Incoming!” He reached for his radio to warn the sergeant of the two trucks coming from the east, but it was too late. I scrambled to turn my rifle, and as I did, I caught sight of a familiar face, hunkering down behind a building with three of his men. “Devin,” I called, grabbing Bones’s arm. But the trucks opened fire, raining bullets and RPGs from the back. Explosions burst around the buildings, and the smoke clouded my vision of my brother.
“Get me a fucking visual!” I demanded.
Bones searched through his binoculars and steadied his out-of-control breath. “Northwest, three clicks.”
A flash of a body came across my lens. “Sighted.”
“Wait . . . wait . . . now!” Bones called, and I fired. I fired shot after shot, but the fucking bombs kept coming. And I lost sight of Devin. Through the smoke and blood and heat, Devin disappeared . . .
My eyes snapped open. I was drenched with sweat. I stared at the end of my bed and the ghosts that fucking came every night. They ain’t real, I told myself. They ain’t fucking real.
But they never left.
Closing my eyes, blocking them out, I pulled Phebe’s face into my mind’s eye and focused on her pale skin, spattered with freckles. I envisioned saving her from this hellhole and taking her back to Lilah. I pictured her free from drugs and smiling. I held on to that image, to the stone-cold fact that she would be safe.
She fucking had to be.
*****
“You see anything useful from the barber shack?” Viking asked as we walked toward the saloon.
I flicked my eyes around us to make sure no one was near. “All quiet. Couldn’t see in. But there was no movement in or out. I got the guard schedule figured out though. That’s something.” And I’d watched the dentist shack all night from my window. I’d slept on and off for a grand total of two hours. Night terrors, they were clinically called; at least that’s what the Marines’ shrink had said. The dead, staring at me with black empty eyes, watching the man who’d sent them to their deaths. They crowded in on me, taunting me with their gaunt, drawn faces. I sat and watched them from my spot on the bed. Frozen, paralyzed by the pain their images brought. Guilt’s claws digging deeply into my chest and ripping open my ribs to gnaw on my exposed heart.
I tried to convince myself they weren’t there, night after night. But when you see the blood seeping from their wounds—fresh and hot—leaking to the floor . . . when you smell the cloying scent of death lingering in the air . . . hear their ragged breathing . . . knowing they aren’t real falls to shit. When every one of your senses tells you that your victims are here to make you pay, you fucking believe them and just let the torture begin.
Flame grunted beside me as the four of us walked into the saloon. It was full of Klansmen, white-power band music spitting from the crackling speakers. No one even glanced our way as we walked up to the bar. Four American beers followed by four whiskeys were slammed onto the bar top without us even ordering. The bartender glared at us; I got the message quick. These American and European drinks were the only drinks that were served here.
Nothing outside of the Klan’s particular WASP agenda.
We took our drinks to a far corner, out of sight and in the shadows. The spot offered me the perfect location to view my surroundings. I’d been right about the exits. Two guards kept vigil around the room, while drunk-as-fuck Klansmen talked and laughed loudly, drunk on liquor and high from fucking the drugged sluts in the barn.