Their Obsession (Four Mercenaries 2)

He half-expected to find it locked, but once he turned the handle, it opened with no issue whatsoever, and the warm air blew at him from outside. For once, something went according to plan.

It was still dark outside, but when he popped his head out, he realized he wasn’t far above a tiled pavement surrounding the building. He couldn’t see any guards, no flashlights. As if nobody suspected he could have gotten outside.

Did they still think he was in the underground level?

Adrenaline burst into his veins, and he jumped out, completely naked except for the bandages that had loosened during the crawl and were obsolete at this point. But if he was to leave this place, he needed to do it fast, because the purple shade on the horizon meant that he would soon lose his best friend—the darkness.

He darted toward the outline of the fence without thinking, and the concrete tile was soon replaced by dirt under his feet. He tried not to think about sharp objects he might step on, focused only on his goal.

Clover wasn’t one to lose hope, but when he recognized the bright signs warning that the fence was attached to high voltage, his shoulders slouched even before he noticed coils of barbed wire on top. With the darkness diluted by the upcoming sunrise, he didn’t have time to think things through and dashed along the perimeter like a prehistoric man running from a wolf pack. Bushes and decorative trees were few and far between, which left him so exposed he decided to fuck it all and take his chance while it lasted.

He felt each and every injury he’d sustained tonight. His ass burned from the rough fuck, his back ached with every stretch, and his feet kept hitting sharp stones, but he wouldn’t stop. Despite the vulnerability of not wearing any clothes, the sense of air flowing against his bare skin made him feel like there was still hope for as long as he breathed. So he ran along the perimeter until his muscles stung from the speed.

At one point he managed to hide behind a trash can when a car drove past him, but in a way, the vehicle was his salvation, because it helped him figure out where a gate was. Clover’s heart thudded when he spotted one groggy-looking guard who yawned as soon as he closed the gate behind the car and lit himself a cigarette moments later.

Clover scanned his surroundings in the light of the rising sun, then turned to the guard again when he spotted no one by the building. The man’s belt holster held a knife and a gun. Clover knew what to do.

Keeping noise to a minimum took priority over the deadliness and range of a firearm, so Clover went for the blade.

The guard went stiff when he felt the pull, but there was no room for hesitation. Clover didn’t know who this guy was or if he even realized what was going on in the building he was guarding, but he was an obstruction to the safety of people who mattered. A single slice across the throat was enough to put him down.

Clover’s knees weakened at the low gurgle followed by blood spraying the asphalt. He stepped back, stiffening when the guard reached for his gun, but he didn’t get to grab it and dropped like a log in a pool of his own blood.

Clover wasn’t sure if some had gotten on him too, but it didn’t matter, and he frantically dug his hands into the pockets of the still-warm corpse. He grabbed both the keys and the gun. He wished there was time to steal the man’s T-shirt, but reaching Tank was his priority.

Once he thought that, he also grabbed the man’s phone, but it wouldn’t open without a password. His hands shook when he slipped the key into the padlock, but determination won out, and he opened the gate just enough to leave.

His soles ached from covering such distance barefoot, but as soon as he was out, he broke into a run again. The landscape was stark, and his heart hammered at the risk of getting caught after going through so much, but none of that mattered when he thought about Drake being tortured and Boar—sold.

This was some kind of industrial area, full of warehouses and car shops that weren’t yet open, so he made use of the lingering darkness, which already had a reddish shade, and maneuvered between the buildings, for once glad Tank had made him run half-marathons and put so much emphasis on endurance exercise. Despite the pain all over, the effort itself was negligible, so he sped up in hope of not being stopped by police.

His chest expanded with anticipation when he spotted low roofs of residential homes beyond a large, blocky building, and he ran into the empty street dividing the two zones.