Authors: Elizabeth Lapthorne
Courting Passion (16 page)
“Then we’re both dead anyway. But I’m not wrong. When they realise they have us all pinned they will use heavier weaponry. You have to go, right now!”
Trust your instincts, her father’s voice reverberated in her mind. Every nerve and brain cell inside her insisted she run now, that her window of opportunity was closing. Knowing it could be the last decision she ever made, Skye took a deep breath. She pressed her lips together in a vain attempt to stop them trembling and pushed herself upright into the fastest sprint she had ever managed.
A hail of bullets rang out.
Skye dimly heard Katherine and Tarek both shout across the dining room, but the words were lost in the clamour of sound. Garth yelled what sounded like a war cry as he returned fire like a man possessed.
In seconds, Skye had cleared what used to be the glass windows. Ducking and weaving around the neighbouring cafe’s tables and chairs, she half crouched in an attempt to make herself as difficult a target as possible. Panting hard, she tripped and stumbled.
Knees and palms scraped raw, Skye didn’t feel a thing with the level of adrenaline coursing through her body. A frantic glance over the street showed a nearly empty diorama, the gunshots and alarms having cleared the road. Cars stood idling, their windscreens cracked and broken, doors left open as people had abandoned everything and scrambled away.
Crouching behind a large barrier that was meant to protect those enjoying the cafe’s food from the pedestrians, Skye found her eye drawn to an alley opening. A small delivery driveway opposite the street facing the restaurant held four men. Her gaze was caught on them simply because they were the only other people visible.
Each of the men wore black camouflage trousers and black T-shirts. Two of them crouched and continued to shoot out many of the car windows and other storefronts. To her untrained eye it looked like they were not aiming for any person or thing in particular, more like just wanting to cause damage and make a lot of noise, perhaps to pin everyone in the restaurant. As she watched, a long metal cylinder was brought out of the shadows of the alley’s mouth and lifted on to the shoulder of one of the men in front. In the back corner of her mind she recognised the weapon, but it took a moment to piece together what was occurring before her eyes.
“Oh no,” she whispered. The very real danger didn’t even cross her mind. She turned back around and tried to shout loudly enough to be heard.
“Garth!” she screamed. “Get out of there, right now!”
Skye caught a faint glimpse of Garth’s head popping up from the overturned table. She pointed to the alley, but she feared it was too late. The cylindrical cannon-like object rested on one man’s shoulder, braced by a second man. The third stood guard as the final man slotted a large rocket into the hold.
“It’s a rocket launcher,” Garth shouted, terror etched into his face. “Get the hell out of here!”
About the Author
Elizabeth Lapthorne has been writing professionally since 2002. She has a number of books released and is continually surprised by how much fun she has starting a new book and discovering new characters and situations that they put themselves in. She enjoys going to the gym (usually to chew over her latest problem scene), is rarely without a partially read book and has a weakness for chocolate.
Email:
[email protected]
Elizabeth loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.total-e-bound.com
.
Also by Elizabeth Lapthorne
The Agency: Flirting With Danger
Total-E-Bound Publishing
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