Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (most read books of all time .txt) 📗

liked this plan one bit, not from the moment Dorothy and her mother had shown up to pitch it to him. It sounded dangerous and complicated and . . . well, stupid.

But it’d been the only plan they had. And, so, he’d agreed.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Now he swallowed his fear and looked around, trying to calmly assess the situation. There were four Freaks to his left, another five to his right. Too many to fight his way through and, with Dorothy standing next to Mac, he was a little short on allies. The Fairmont wall was directly behind him, cutting off any means of exit, and the sound was just ahead, flat, black, and cold. He wouldn’t be making a swim for it, not tonight.

He was pretty well screwed, no matter which way he looked at it.

“No.” He forced the word out of his mouth, the taste of it bitter on his tongue. Turning back to Dorothy, he said, “What are you doing? We were going to take Mac on together. That was the plan.”

Meanwhile, he lowered a hand to his gun, his fingers curling gently around the hilt. The metal felt damp in the foggy night air and cold to the touch. It brought him some comfort that he had it with him. Screwed or not, he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Get ready, he told himself. His muscles pulled tight, waiting.

Across from him, Mac yanked his own gun from his waistband and used it to scratch his temple.

“The thing is, princess,” he said, “I just don’t trust you.”

He pointed the gun at Dorothy’s face, drawing the hammer back with his thumb.

Ash felt an old urge roar up inside of him. He wanted to leap at Mac, push him away from Dorothy. Was he really going to stand here and watch her be shot in the head like an animal? He didn’t think he was capable of that, no matter what she’d done or said.

And yet he held himself still, barely breathing.

Dorothy’s eyes flicked to him, and away. If she was frightened, she didn’t show it. Her face was emotionless, giving away nothing.

“Don’t call me princess,” she said, offering Mac a thin smile.

Mac seemed to think this was funny. His bitter laugh cut through the night. “I suppose those last words are as good as any other.” He licked his fat lips and squinted down the gun’s sight, aiming. “It was nice knowing you, little—”

“No!” Ash had his gun in his hand in a second, his heart beating at his chest like an animal but, before he could pull the trigger, the ground in front of him exploded, showering him with wood and water.

Dorothy danced backward, swearing, as Ash blinked into the cloud of dust, trying to find something to shoot. The Freaks were closing in, firing. He heard another crack of a bullet—this one whizzing past his face—and then the air cleared enough for Ash to make out Mac standing at the top of the Fairmont staircase, debris falling like snow around him.

Ash moved his eyes away from Mac for a fraction of a second, squinting to find Dorothy in the darkness.

“Wait, please!” She was crouching a few steps below him, a thin line of blood cutting across her face. She fumbled with something in her cloak, and Ash heard a sound like scraping metal. “I have the exotic matter right here. I’m telling you the truth—”

A gunshot cracked through the air, and a bullet caught Ash on the arm, spinning him around. Grimacing, Ash tightened his grip on his gun, firing back. He felt dazed, overwhelmed with disgust and fury.

He pressed a hand to his injured arm, breathing hard through his teeth. He could already feel the blood soaking his shirt.

Bullets whizzed past Ash’s legs and hit the wall behind him. Ping. Ping. Ash managed to crack off a single shot before the third got him in his thumb—bright white burst of pain—and then he was jerking his hand back, and his gun was thwacking into the ground.

He ducked back behind the Fairmont wall, chest rising and falling, heavily. Shit.

“Mac, please,” Dorothy was saying, “Listen to reason!”

Ash thought he heard another gunshot, a thud. Despite everything, horror flooded through him. He peeked around the edge of the wall.

The exotic matter was lying on the ground three feet away. He didn’t see Dorothy anywhere.

He moved his eyes back to the exotic matter. It was too far for him to reach. If he wanted it, he’d have to lunge for it.

It was only three feet away. Not far at all. He could make it. Probably.

The muscles in his leg tensed. His heart beat hard and fast in his chest.

He dived—

The second his hands closed around the EM, he heard a click. He looked up and saw Mac standing on the Fairmont stairs a few feet above him, one hand curled around Dorothy’s shoulders, his gun aimed at her head.

Smiling, Mac said, “Hand that over, son, or your girl dies.”

33Dorothy

Dorothy held her body perfectly still, trying to breathe despite the cold press of the gun at her temple. The Freaks had stopped shooting. They stood in a loose circle around the three of them, glancing at one another anxiously, eager to see what was going to happen next. Dorothy found Donovan and Bennett in the crowd and was pleased to see that they looked worried. Eliza stood a few feet ahead of them, looking excited by the potential for bloodshed. Dorothy couldn’t stand to look at them, and so she shifted her gaze to the woman in black, who stood still as a shadow, saying nothing.

Everything is a con, she thought. Her fingers twitched.

“What’ll it be, kid?” Mac said gleefully. “You going to hand me that canister nicely? Or do I put a bullet in her pretty little head?”

Dorothy swallowed, finally letting her gaze drift over to Ash’s face. She was standing above him on the Fairmont steps while he knelt on the docks several feet below, his head lifted,