His Princess (A Royal Romance)(11)

A roar behind my head makes my ears ring, and the world goes silent. These little puffs of dirt rake across the ground, and when they hit the cluster of fighters they turn from puffs of dirt to splashes of red. I never understood until this moment how delicate the human body is. The impacts are like smashing a melon.

There’s a spotlight on me. A helicopter slides from side to side overhead, shining a light so bright it makes the sun look like a candle. I scream in stupid animal panic, run through the flaps into the tent and throw myself down.

Melissa has spit out her gag and is sobbing hysterically, praying and cursing and begging for help. She calls out for her mother, for God, even for Brad. More gunfire rips overhead. That gun on the helicopter shoots so fast it sounds like one noise, a steady roar.

Another explosion shakes the dirt.

This is just a tent. They can’t know we’re in here. When I look out through the flaps I see my worst fear. Bullets rake the tent across the path and it collapses on itself, folding in like a house of cards.

Then Brad bursts in, half his face covered in slick blood and sweat. His eyes stand out too white and too wide, and there’s a wet spot on his khakis.

“Shut up and do what I say.”

I do the exact opposite of that. I kick at him as he draws closer, my boot catching him in the leg.

“You stupid twat, that’s the Phoenix Guard out there. They catch us and we’re f*cked.”

I just stare at him.

“You mean you’re f*cked if you’re caught with us.”

He blinks. “No time. You want to live, you come with me. Otherwise, I gotta get rid of the evidence.”

He shakes a gas can at me. Liquid sloshes in the bottom.

My breath catches. He wouldn’t.

His eyes say he would.

“Fine.”

If he can buy me another ten minutes, I’ll take it. There has to be a chance we can still get away.

He pulls me up and throws a blanket around me. It slips off and he pulls it tighter, and cuts the cords tying Melissa and Danielle’s ankles. Melissa springs to her feet, but Danielle won’t move.

“Burn me,” she croaks. “You f*cking bastard.”

“Get up, you stupid bitch,” he snarls, dragging her to her feet.

She finally gets up and he shoves her forward.

“Head toward the rear of the camp. There’s an old goat track that leads into the mountains. If we can get out of sight and get some cover, we can wait it out, maybe recover a vehicle and head back for Solkovia.”

“Where you kill us and dump our bodies,” I say.

“If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it already. Are you that stupid?”

“If I was that smart I wouldn’t be here, dealing with you, motherf*cker.”

“Just f*cking move or I swear to God I will blow your brains out myself. Stay low and stay close to the edge of the tents.”

He jabs my back with his pistol and I push Melissa forward. We end up herding Danielle alone, flanking her and bumping her along when she tries to stop. As she walks, her eyes fade more and more until she looks completely burnt out, staring at nothing. She stumbles and falls when another explosion rocks the camp.

There are more of them on the ground now. I can hear shots and see people running. Another helicopter whips overhead, spins, and comes back around, raking the ground with gunfire. Flares and explosions light the night like a thunderstorm, raging wildly overhead.

Brad points toward a twisting, narrow path behind the general’s tent that slopes sharply up into the mountains. Danielle isn’t going to make it on bare feet, but I don’t think Brad cares all that much. He shoves us forward hard.

“Come on, we’re almost there.”

I look over my shoulder and see them.

They’re dressed in black, all of them. Big men in tactical web gear with black berets, moving with mechanical efficiency. They make the “resistance” fighters look like children playing at war. When they spot the resistance men they just shoot them without thinking.

A knot of fighters comes around the tent just as we head for the goat track. They aim their rifles at Brad and he drops his gun.

Danielle screams.

They shoot her. Three times in the chest. She falls down, not like a movie, she just collapses in place, her breathing replaced with a ragged, irregular sucking sound, like someone trying to pull gelatin through a straw. One of the fighters kicks her aside and barks an order at us.

“Move,” Brad translates.

Pushed forward, we head up the goat trail. It’s barely wide enough for us to pass one at a time at first, before it evens out and spreads out wider. The resistance fighters push us all under a rock outcropping and look back.

Brad talks with them, and for a moment the one who looks like he’s leading them listens, then cracks Brad in the face with the butt of his gun.

They start arguing back and forth. I can barely make out what they’re saying, it’s too fast, but I pick up enough words. Three of the six of them want to kill Brad, take us with them, and f*ck us before they kill us.

The other three want to kill us now, because we’ll make too much noise.

I scream at the top of my lungs. They all just stare at me before one shoves the butt of his rifle into my stomach again. He points his gun at me.

I’m lucky. He’s one of the ones who wants to use me before they kill me. Instead of shooting me he just sticks his bayonet against my cheek. One move and he’ll slice open my cheek from eye to chin.