Next to a bloody body was a familiar spear. Ryder? Leandro’s heart pounded hard with every step he took closer. The blood made it impossible to scent who was holding it. Is it Ryder? Am I too late? Pops could have handled the Mad on the steps. He’s a vampire, after all. I shouldn’t have waited... I shouldn’t have taken so long...
He gingerly headed closer to the spear. Leandro's eyes trailed from the hand clasped loosely around the spear and up the arm. The arm was tanned and long and had blood splatters. He instantly knew that wasn’t Ryder’s arm. Hers was pale and lean. It was Koda.
Koda's finger twitched on the shaft, startling Leandro. He was alive? Leandro growled at Carter.
Carter realized what was happening and called the others over to protect Koda from the Mad.
Leandro raced off to find Ryder.
Carter watched Fluffy head back to the stairs. He knew that Fluffy wasn’t scared of a fight, so where was he going?
Carter quickly followed Fluffy down the stairs.
“You fucking pussies,” Ryder snarled at the generals between punches. She wasn’t going to let them win. Every punch she took, Ryder made sure she was falling in the direction of the knife. If only she could reach it! But each time she got close, another punch would knock her in the other direction.
“Get off her!” Decso yelled. He was back at the front of the tunnel and already climbing over the barricade. “You don’t hit a woman!” He continued to yell as he forced his way over the barrier, slapping away the hands that tried to push him back. Ryder looked hard at each and every one of those faces. If she got out of this alive, they would pay!
Over the years, Decso had taken his fair share of beatings. Whenever Terrier or Ryder found it happening, they would stop the bully. Bullies always pick on the weak, which made Decso a perfect victim. He’d also never learned to shut his mouth. He always spoke before he thought.
Luckily for Ryder, today wasn’t the case of Decso running his mouth too soon. He made it over the barricade and lunged for the knife on the floor by the dead Mad.
“Get him,” General Finn snapped at the other generals. They headed straight for Decso, who paled. He’d actually thought that making a stand would stop them from beating Ryder. He realized that he hadn’t really thought this out.
A man shouted from behind the barricade, “Don’t touch Decso.” It was Paul, who kept to himself normally. It looked like today was the turning point for some of the men. Today they had the chance to be their true selves.
The generals stopped at Paul’s request. It wasn’t because he was bigger than the generals. No, it was more because of what Paul represented—the hunters. The men the generals had kept down. There were more hunters than there were generals, and the hunters knew the generals didn’t have any bullets in their guns—or Afana to back them up.
There was a tense standoff between the generals and the hunters. No one moved, and General Finn even stopped punching Ryder.
He turned and looked at the hunters and his generals, then at Decso. “We won’t hurt him,” General Finn told Paul. Then he hit Ryder again, and only Decso objected. The men weren’t going to help Ryder because she was a woman.
“Fuck you all!” Ryder spat through the blood and snot running down her face. “When I free this place you can all go die in the fucking woods with the Mad!”
Decso cringed.
“Not you, Decso,” she managed as General Finn punched her again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Leandro and Carter bounded down the stairs and landed on Level Five, “Those fuckers!” Carter was in full fury, and Leandro was feeling the same thing.
Man and wolf headed straight for General Finn. When the general saw Carter swinging his axe in his direction and Leandro's angry fangs, he instantly let go of Ryder and fired.
General Finn wasn’t out of bullets, he had just been waiting for the right time to fire the gun. The bullet lodged in Leandro’s thigh. Even beaten up, Ryder wasn’t going to stand for that shit. No one shot at Fluffy.
The other generals had loosened their grips enough for Ryder to break free, and she took the chance and kicked General Finn right in the balls, then lunged and took him down to the ground. Ryder landed on top of him, driving the breath from his body. Ryder didn’t waste her chance. She rained punches on General Finn, smashing the hell out of his already-battered face.
She heard Carter fighting with the other generals. They’d gone back to being useless without a leader, and they didn’t know what to do with a wild man like Carter. She also heard Fluffy snarling and snapping, but he’d been shot in the thigh. A bullet wound wouldn’t stop Leandro from growling at the generals, however.
General Finn fought back against Ryder, or at least he squirmed fruitlessly while she pounded him. She couldn’t just punch him to death, though.
“Ryder, here.” Decso was in front of her with the bloody knife.
General Finn’s eyes bulged when he saw the blade. Now Ryder had the upper hand. She pressed the knife against his throat. “Tell them to stop,” she ordered.
He spat blood at her. “Never.”
Ryder pushed the blade harder against his throat. The skin parted, and a small rill of blood trickled down Finn’s neck. “Tell them,” she warned, “or I cut your fucking throat and watch you bleed out.”
“Stop,” he whispered.
Ryder pushed a touch harder. “Louder, asshole!”
He yelled through gritted teeth, “Stop!”
As Ryder had hoped, the generals stopped. It was like they were programmed to follow orders. Ryder wondered if Massimo could reprogram them to not
