In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

I breathed a sigh of relief that none of the other kind survived the helicopter crash, despite the sounds we’d already heard.

“Is everyone okay?” I asked in the lull, as the shivering returned with the adrenaline fading. There was a moment when no one said a word, but soon the replies came, one by one, that there had been nothing more than a few cuts and bruises.

The van slowed as we entered a pedestrian lane between a long line of houses, but I recognised the lull that always came after the action and, despite our escape, I couldn’t truly relax, waiting for the next jolt back to chaos, unable to stop searching out the next crisis in every point in the narrow space between the buildings as we passed.

Catching the sour odour of a dressing not changed in a long while, I took my first look at the driver. Despite his all-weather tan, my eyes were wide as I focused on his washed-out hue and the clammy sheen covering his neck.

With Thompson sitting in front of me in the passenger seat only looking up from a map to issue a command, left or right, trying to guide us out of the pedestrian maze, he hadn’t once glanced to the driver.

I turned to Jess at my side and she nodded. She’d seen him, too. So had Alex.

“Nice one for finding us,” Carr said. “But did you really have to smash through the wall?”

The driver let out a weak laugh.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” His voice came out quiet and strained. “I hit a few of the fuckers as I drove in and couldn’t stop in time.”

“Thompson,” I said, but he dismissed me with a shake of his head, keeping his concentration down to the map with his brow furrowed.

I turned around, pushing my back to the side door to get a better look across the inside of the minivan. Gibson held his pistol out, peering through the rear windows while Sherlock looked across the view with his rifle out of sight.

“Thompson,” I said, louder this time.

He ignored my call, but Carr in the middle seat didn’t. As he looked my way, I nodded toward the driver.

Carr followed my gaze, both of us watching as the driver’s head dipped forward for a moment as if he were falling asleep.

Carr’s face lost all its cheer as his gaze dropped to the soldier’s leg, focusing on what I couldn’t see.

“Shit,” Carr said and turned to Thompson, glaring in his direction. “Sir,” he said, his tone sharp.

Everyone’s attention snapped to Carr. Even the driver.

Carr leaned back in his seat to give Thompson the best view possible across his front.

“Shit,” Thompson replied, after looking the driver up and down. “How much time have we got?”

When no one replied, Thompson turned back to look ahead to where the path we were on seemed to end, but as the distance shortened, we soon saw a choice of a sharp turn left or right.

“Which way?” the driver asked, his voice lacklustre and dry.

I watched as he leaned forward with a pained expression, peering at Thompson as we slowed. When no one answered the second question, he looked to Carr who stared forward, then over his shoulder, locking eyes with me.

“Which way?”

With just the sound of the engine ticking over and my body shaking despite the rising temperature, I felt Shadow’s panting in the footwell with steam forming on the inside of the windows obscuring the walls either side.

“Left,” I said.

Slowly nodding, the driver pushed the selector back into gear and we edged forward.

Halfway through the slow turn, Thompson moved, rushing his pistol to the air, across Carr to point at the driver’s chest.

Surprised when the driver didn’t flinch, it was as if he hadn’t seen the movement, but as he straightened up from the turn and the narrow alley stretching out ahead, he looked down the barrel of the gun.

“What?” he said. With the van rolling slowly forward, he glanced to his leg. “Oh, that.” Screwing up his face, he looked back up to the road and our speed built.

Looking paler than ever, he spoke again. “It’s not a bite. It’s not, and I feel fine. Which way now?”

A silence filled the space as each of us looked between the driver and the narrowing lane ahead, littered with rubbish bins and scattered with what they had once contained. Blood on the walls drew my attention, but Thompson didn’t let his view of the driver falter.

Only when we slowed to a stop did Thompson chance a look ahead, just as a Sherlock spoke from the back.

“Contact. Six o’clock.”

63

Heads turned in the back seats, each of us squinting out through the moisture on the windows as Sherlock and Gibson continued to run their sleeves over the glass to clear the view.

“Which way?” the driver called, but Thompson kept the gun and his heavy-lidded glare fixed on him as he pushed the map over the back of the seat and to my lap.

“Get us out of this maze,” he said.

“Right,” I bellowed after turning the map up the correct way. We moved off again.

“Boss,” came the low northern call from behind me, but looking to the smeared windows, they gave only a hint of movement beyond.

“How you feeling?” Thompson called out.

“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Carr added in a higher voice.

The driver gave an energetic nod, and I watched the sweat running down his neck as the steering wheel slipped from his hands with debris hitting the tyre, but he snatched back control, catching the wheel in time to avoid the wall. “I’m okay,” he said, his voice breathy. “It’s not a bite.”

The scream called again, louder this time, and I felt the rumble of Shadow’s growl between my legs. Stroking down