Wylder leapt back out and yanked the door shut. He was in a good enough mood with the success of the mission to forget that he was supposed to hate me now. “Some kind of drug,” he said, clapping his hands together triumphantly. “We’ll have to take a closer look at it when we’re back on our home turf. For now, all that matters is it’s in our hands, not—”
Tires screeched, and three cars raced around the nearest corner. Bullets thundered from their open windows.
“Take shelter!” Wylder hollered, already diving around the side of the truck. I ducked down next to him, my breath catching in my throat.
I’d been right that everything had gone too easily, but I wasn’t exactly happy about that fact. Where were Rowan and Kaige? I couldn’t see them anymore—they must have found something else to shield them, right?
I peeked around the rear of the truck. Men were spilling out of the cars now—at least a dozen of them with red bandanas around their arms charging up the street toward us. Almost everyone already had a gun out, pointed towards us. Fuck.
A bullet whizzed past my head as I pulled back just in time. I cocked my own gun, a tremor running through my body. I’d killed a man before, yes—but just the one, and not with a bullet. I’d never shot at anything other than paper targets and tin cans.
I could do this. I was Mercy Katz, Princess of the fucking Claws, and I was going to take down as many of the treacherous motherfuckers out there as I possibly could.
Wylder had already shouldered past me and was shooting at the incoming Steel Knights. A few of the other Nobles hustled over, returning fire at the enemy. As I watched, Wylder put a bullet right in the center of one guy’s forehead as easily as if it were a target on his shooting range. He didn’t show the slightest reaction to the killing.
Why should he? This was his job—and he was damn good at it.
Engines roared somewhere beyond my view. More men ran at us from a side-street in the other direction.
“Get up front,” Wylder called to me. “Hold them off. We can’t let them take the truck back.”
The truck seemed to be less of a problem than making sure they didn’t take our lives, but I followed his orders anyway. I dashed around the cab.
Rowan stepped forward. I had a moment’s relief seeing that he was okay, but he wasn’t looking my way. He raised his gun and took two men down with swift, clean shots, his expression intent. It was surreal to see the boy I had grown up with kill without a moment’s hesitation.
He glanced over and saw me watching, but I couldn’t look away. What looked like guilt flashed across his face before it was replaced with determination.
Who was I to judge him anyway? I was a killer, just like them. And if we didn’t kill these assholes, they were definitely going to kill us.
Three more Steel Knights hurtled into sight. A jolt of recognition hit me—I knew the guy in the middle. I’d seen him hanging around with some of the other Claws lackeys by my house now and then. Jenner wasn’t the only one who’d switched sides and given his loyalty to the man who’d destroyed us.
I fired a few shots and managed to catch one of the other Steel Knights in the shoulder, but my heart was beating so fast it was hard to keep my arms steady. They were everywhere. How the hell were we going to get out of this?
I glanced at the door of the truck’s cab next to me, still hanging open with the dead Steel Knight guard slumped on the pavement beneath it, and something clicked in my head. They were all here to protect their shipment. If we got the shipment away from them, we’d have won.
I might not be a fantastic shot yet, but I sure as hell knew how to drive.
More shots rang out on both sides. I dove into the cab and found the driver had dropped the keys on the floor—probably as he’d been riddled with bullets. He was still sprawled halfway out the other door. I kicked his slack body the rest of the way out, reached to yank the door shut—and a Steel Knight appeared, his gun cocked and pointed at me.
“Don’t move, or I’m going to blow your brains out,” he said.
Oh, hell no to that. I froze as if I were complying. The second his gun hand wavered, relaxing with the thought that he had me, I kicked him right in the face as hard as I could.
He staggered backward with a violent curse and then jerked with two bullets that caught him in the chest. As he collapsed, Kaige dashed into view, his eyes wild. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly. “Just going to get this thing out of here.”
“I’ll cover you.”
He ran around to the passenger side, getting in another few shots as he went. I yanked my door shut and jammed the key into the ignition. As Kaige lunged into the cab with me, a bullet punctured the window next to me, whizzing by so close I’d swear it grazed the wisps of hair along my forehead.
I should have been terrified. Any sane person would have been. But instead what swept through me then was a surge of adrenaline so potent I let out a keening battle cry. Then I rammed my foot down on the gas.
The truck heaved forward with more speed than I’d anticipated. Kaige swore and grabbed the side of the door for dear life. I whirled the truck sharply to the left and the right, clipping a couple of Steel Knights in my way. Then I aimed it toward the small gap between the Noble car and the sidewalk. “I hope Ezra thinks this shipment is worth a little damage.”
Kaige fired out the window and glanced at me. “What are you—”
The wheels on one side of the cab jumped the curb. The other side smashed into the trunk of the car. I spun the steering wheel, missing a telephone pole by inches. The truck shuddered—and then we were past the whole mess, speeding down a nearly empty stretch of street so fast the wind whistled past the broken windows.
“Holy shit,” Kaige said in a voice that was nothing but awe. “You’re insane.” He let out a delighted guffaw and leaned out the window to fire a few shots to pick off people behind us. “The Steel Knights are on the run now. The ones we didn’t kill, anyway. Wylder and Rowan are heading to Rowan’s car.”
A giddy smile stretched across my face, the crazy thrill of the moment still reverberating through my body. “Get them on the phone, then, and find out where the hell Wylder wants me to take this thing.”
But as I slowed to take a corner, not wanting to flip the truck in the process, my exhilaration faded a little. The memory of the Claws guy rose up in my mind.
How could any of our people have taken the Steel Knights’ side after what Colt had done? Were they really that despicable?
Or was it possible they didn’t even know what had really gone down on the night of my rehearsal dinner?