Escort Me Baby (#2)

Chapter 50: Backstabbing Bitch

"Sorry, Ms. Noelle," Vince apologizes, lowering his head a bit as Athena rolls her eyes.

"Move along!" Athena demands, forcing Arie to follow Jackson with some other assassins as Rome starts walking away with Vince and a few other men while I stand glued to the filthy and muddy concrete ground, staring at Athena who returns the gaze.

"Don't die," she utters in a stern voice, almost coming off as a threat.

I chuckle, shaking my head. "What if I'm not that lucky?"

"Just don't," she warns me, gulping hard to swallow down her emotions. "I might not find my mother and sister alive today, but I care about you too much at this point to have you leave me too."

I frown at the mere possibility of something grave happening to her or the turn of events that might lead to us falling apart along with the relationship we've built up so far. "No promises." I pinch my lips together in an attempt to refrain myself from pulling her into my arms and holding her until all this would end, but I know I can't do that. The situation won't allow for us to bask in each other's warmth at a dire moment like this. Lives are literally at stake and that can't be messed with.

          Athena nods slowly, retrieving her guns from the holsters wrapped around her waist. "I'll see you on the other side if you survive."

She struts away without another word as I pace the other away, tracing Vince's footsteps into a narrow hallway. The feeling of unease thumps my chest in trepidation, but I need to be on my best game right now without any fear or else it'd end my life or my brother's which I can't risk.

Bullets start piercing through the musky, cold air as I immediately take cover behind the wall Rome was pinned to. The paleness on his face vibrantly screams of his oozing fear as he holds his gun to his chest.

          "Scared?" I ask. He nods in response, ducking every time a bullet hits the corner of the wall. "Same, bro."

          "Just need to get Cornelia and Addy out of here. I don't care about anyone else," he confesses, taking deep breaths to calm himself.

          "Just admit that you want to be the hero in their eyes," I laugh to make light of the situation amidst the screams and mildly loud thuds of dead bodies dropping.

          "I love 'em," he breathes out shakily as my eyes widen.

"Both?" His silence does the job of professing his love for the girls before I nudge him to the dooming reality. "Let's survive and save them then."

We carefully sprint across a hall, dodging bullets and kicking a door open that gives us access to a staircase. Skipping up the steps, we tiptoe around the landing and open the door to enter the second floor that reeks of dead rats and old rusty building, which this is. Moss covers the walls in a slime lining with vines swirling all around as dirty water drips from the cracks in the ceiling.

          Rushed footsteps echo loud as they get closer which forces me and Rome to hurriedly hide in a room around the corner containing broken wooden furniture. Holding my breath, I remain quiet and completely still until I hear the people storm past the room before I jump out and attack them from behind, shooting them all dead.

"Damn, bro!" Rome swivels out of the room like a little mouse, taking in the scene of the bloody walls and dead bodies crumbled together on the floor. "You've done this before, right?"

"You have no idea what I've done." I huff out repressed air, motioning him to follow me into an empty hallway.

"Like what?" he asks in a curious tone as we carefully head down a narrow aisle.