Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 132

"Why don't you do it?"

Aria glared at him. "I'm not your fucking maid. If you want to come with us, you must do what I say and play your part. Understand?"

Barry gulped. "Yes."

"Good. It's a long way to the car dealership, but if we're quick, those six blocks will feel like nothing."

"And the vectors?" Marie asked.

"Hopefully, we won't encounter any."

Let's hope, Yousef thought. "They'd be pissed at us," Yousef blurted out, but it was too late to pull the words back into his mouth. He looked at Aria, surprised she didn't glare at him.

"Yes, they will, but by then, we're going to be far away," Aria said.

"Yeah, I wouldn't count on that," a familiar voice from the door, followed by the chilling click of a pistol's hammer. Pete stepped through the door frame and out of the darkness, the barrel of his gun pointed at them. "Someone's angry right now."

"Pete..." Aria started.

"Shut up, Aria. I don't want to hear more of your crap," Pete hissed. "Well, isn't this interesting? You four are stealing from the group?"

"Please, Pete. We just want to survive," Aria said.

"I told you, one more word, or I'll put a bullet through you."

"You won't do that."

"Really, Aria? After the shit I pulled? You gotta remember I'm not the one who fucked the group here. It's you four."

Aria wasn't intimidated at all, and for a second, Yousef truly admired her. "Oh, for fuck sake, Pete, you're the ones who fucked us over by staying put in this death trap."

"I'm trying to keep us alive."

"No, you let your dick decide what to do, and I don't trust you. Not one bit."

Pete chuckled. "Pretty words, but I'm not the one stealing supplies from two children upstairs." Aria didn't find the words. "Right. You didn't think about them, did you? You only focused on yourself, Aria, like you always do. As a matter of fact, I don't think you even asked the others if they wanted to go. Who did you ask, Aria?"

Pete's eyes found Yousef, and he wasn't comfortable that he regarded his attention on him. "Yousef who's been nipping at your tail, following you like a lost puppy? He doesn't have a spine, so you know he'll say yes to whatever comes out of your mouth."

Asshole! He wanted to shout, but the word jammed right into his throat. He shook, rooted to the floor while he thought of ways to protect Aria. The rifle! Then, his stomach sank. The rifles leaned against the doorframe just a foot away from Pete. Pete, of course, smirked at him, making fun of his stupidity. The soldier stepped and blocked the rifle's view.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why did I put it there?!

He was too confident, too sure that Pete and the others wouldn't be awake, too sure that they wouldn't find out. But of course, Pete did. Yousef had grown comfortable around Pete that he had forgotten what the man was capable of. Aria had only been with him for a couple of weeks. Yousef had seen what he could do in a couple of months.

"For Barry, it wasn't a secret he wanted to leave, so you recruited him. As for Marie, I can't help but be surprised about that. What will Paloma think? No, you, Marie, sought Aria out yourself. Now, Aria has three people rather than the two she had planned. A drain in resources, but safety numbers after all. What's one more meatbag to increase your likelihood of survival, right? The only way to survive a bear is to run faster than the last guy, right?"