Fear tears through me. Where’s Colton? I try searching, desperately looking around. There are too many hands, too many people.
A familiar chuckle tears through the night, the sound tearing right through to my fears. “You want to be a fucking Wolf, well you got your wish, bitch.”
Snake.
Fuck. This is it. This is the Wolves coming to hurt me, jump me into their world. There’s no going back after this.
“Get off me, you fucking bastards.” I hear the anger and desperation thick in Colton's voice as he struggles against someone. Where is he? There’s a scuffle, and I hear flesh being pounded on before the sound of urgent footsteps approach. “If you even think about fucking touching her … JADE? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?”
“COLTON.” Tears stream down my face. Where is he? I need him. “I’M HERE. I’M HERE. PLEASE …”
“Shut up, bitch,” comes Snake’s voice again before a heavy fist slams down over my face, hitting the side of my nose. Pain rockets through me, and I cry out, feeling a warm trickle of blood seeping down from my nose and dropping into the curve of my lips. I taste it there, mixing with my tears.
I grab onto the arm around my eyes before digging my nails deep into his skin. The guy howls in pain, and with every ounce of strength I have, I tear his arm down and bite down as hard as I possibly can.
The arm is torn away from me, and my weight instantly drops to the hard concrete. I don’t waste a damn second. I scramble to my feet as I see Snake launching toward me.
Not today, fucker.
I run, heading straight for Colton who’s still coming at me. Three guys lay on the ground behind him, all struggling to get to their feet. I reach out and take his hand, and he holds onto it with every ounce of strength he possesses. “Fucking run,” he tells me, spinning on the spot before taking off like a fucking bull out of a cage, pushing me ahead of him as the Wolves gain from behind.
I glance back over my shoulder into the night. There are at least twenty of them. We’ll never win. I’ll never get away from this. Snake bounds down behind me, and with a quick flash, I notice Christian chasing after me, and fuck, he looks sick at what he has to do. “We’ll never make it,” I panic, yelling across at Colton.
“I’m not about to let you get hurt.” My feet pound against the concrete, my heart racing in fear, and then his voice comes again as a cold metal key is put into my hand. “Just keep running,” he tells me. “Don’t stop until you’re in the car. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”
“What?”
I look over at him, but it’s too late.
Colton releases my hands and turns on the Wolves, ready to give his freedom for mine. “NOOOOOO,” I scream, doubling back.
His desperate stare meets mine. “FUCKING RUN, JADE.”
Tears stream down my face, but I do as I’m told, refusing to look back as I hear the sound of the Wolves catching up to Colton. There’s a scuffle, shouts, and curses before an all too familiar pained groan.
Every fiber in my body screams at me to turn back, to help him, but I keep running, one devastating foot after another.
I’m only a few feet away as I fumble with the key fob, trying to concentrate enough to find the button to automatically open the door. I finally get it, and just as I go to launch myself through the door, a hand curls around my elbow and squeezes hard.
I’m tugged back with a hard yank and completely pulled off my feet. My ass hits the ground, and before I have a chance to pull myself up, my thighs are scraped along the concrete as Snake drags me back toward the darkness.
I scream out as I kick and flail about, doing anything and everything to try and get free. He drags me back past Colton, and as I meet his eyes, four guys struggle to hold him down while another slams his fists into his abdomen. His eyes are dark and wild, filled with desperation, regret, and failure. I can only imagine the things going through his mind right now.
This is all my fault, I did this. He shouldn’t be involved. I was so stupid to assume that I’d be safe with him, that they’d leave him out of it. How am I ever going to make up for that?
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Snake rumbles, adjusting his grip on me so that he’s mainly dragging me by my hair.
I cry out in agony, and Snake laughs as Colton groans, hating nothing more than the sound of my despair. I try to meet his eyes again, but he’s lost in a sea of Wolves. “No,” I cry, around the sounds of my muffled pain. “Leave him alone.”