Undercover Captor (Shadow Agents 5)

More explosions erupted, only this time they were in the building. The detonations seemed to come one right after the other. Devast’s men were destroying everything—and making it impossible for anyone to follow them as they fled through the float graveyard.

Chunks of the old floats flew into the air. A dragon’s papier-mâché head ignited a few feet from her.

“You think Devast didn’t plan this end?” Carl jerked her head back with a painful grip on her hair. “He made sure we could escape—and that we’d take you with us. Mercer will be getting pieces of you sent to him for weeks.”

They were sick. “I’m not...going...” The smoke was rising. Filling her lungs.

Breathe.

They’d taken her inhaler. When they’d searched her at the door, they’d taken her weapons and her medicine.

The smoke made her eyes burn. The flames heated her skin.

The men kicked open the back door. Fresh air blew inside and she tried to take deep, greedy gulps.

But then gunfire erupted. The rat-a-tat sent the men scrambling back inside the building. Tina tried to duck for cover, but Carl wasn’t letting her go.

The back door swung open. A man raced inside. His blond hair gleamed in the faint light. He wore black, and she could see the bulky outline of his bulletproof vest. He had a gun in each hand, and his bullets hit with deadly accuracy, slamming into the men who’d thought they’d had an easy escape.

With the EOD, nothing was ever easy. Devast had underestimated his opponents.

“Stop!” Carl yelled. Tina was in front of him. His human shield. “Throw down your weapons and get back or she dies!”

But the man shook his head. He lifted his guns. Seemed to be aiming—

At me? Yes, he was.

“You aren’t getting away. The EOD doesn’t negotiate with terrorists.” She didn’t recognize the agent’s unaccented voice, but she sure recognized Mercer’s familiar line.

He’s going to shoot me. To take out Carl, she realized the agent would need to get rid of Carl’s protection. Tina braced for the pain.

Before another gunshot erupted, someone slammed into them. She and Carl both hit the ground with an impact hard enough to crack bones. Tina was pretty sure she did hear one of Carl’s bones break, and that savage sound made her heart race faster. The knife had sliced over her collarbone when she fell, and more blood soaked her shirt as Tina rolled away from her attacker.

She pushed up to her knees and saw—

Drew.

He’d come back. She’d known that he would. Happiness and hope fought inside her.

But...his expression was brutal. Wild. He was driving his fist into Carl’s face again and again.

Carl’s head slammed into the concrete, and he stopped moving.

“Come on!” It was the EOD agent. The one she didn’t know. He was grabbing her arms and pulling her up to her feet. “My orders are to get you out of here!”

The flames were spreading. Would more bombs be detonating soon?

“The whole place is going to blow—it’s their distraction. They thought they’d get away while the whole block burned.”

His hold on her wrist was unbreakable.

Drew rose to his feet.

Tina tried to reach for him. “Drew! Come on!”

He looked up at her.

Her heart stopped.