Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 71852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71852 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Fear clutched at Boar’s flesh, and he rubbed his face, hoping he was dreaming, but no, a bunch of monkeys grabbed a nearby wire fence and watched as if they were bloodthirsty for a spectacle.
Boar exhaled, trying to gather his thoughts, but the smooth hum of a car close by made him sink lower and peek between the vines. A red sports car rolled down the alley, its headlights like two inquisitive eyes in search of intruders, even though it clearly was one too.
Boar gestured at Drake and Clover, asking them for silence, but the vehicle didn’t pass them and instead came to a halt only a couple of paces away from the turtle enclosure. Boar stopped breathing altogether. As time stretched, the natural plant odor became choking like that of rotting undergrowth, but he remained still as two men got out of the car. His lungs filled with air when he realized they’d left the vehicle running. They either intended to return very soon or weren’t certain of their safety.
Either way, this was their chance.
Clover cleared his throat and whispered, “the lions are across from us. We need to—”
Drake cut him off with a voice made of razor blades. “I see him.”
And then, he bolted.
Without a plan, without any consideration for the world around him, he was like a dagger thrown toward the small group Boar only now spotted. Unlike a dagger though, Drake wouldn’t just clatter to the ground if he met a wall. Despite what Drake might be thinking about himself, he was flesh and bone that could be torn by bullets. An insanely capable man was still a man.
Even Clover, who’d been so carefree about this whole thing, understood the suicidal nature of Drake’s actions and made an expression so helpless Boar wished he could whisk him off somewhere safe. This was the rational thing to do, but once bullets and screams erupted in the silence, he no longer had a peaceful way out of this.
Grabbing Clover’s wrist, he burst from his hideout and kneeled behind the open car only moments before one of its side windows was hit and crumbled in an eruption of glass.
“Take the car and go,” he said to Clover but had no time to waste, so he moved along the vehicle before sprinting toward the chimpanzee enclosure. Their howls were loud enough to reach the moon above, large bodies moving in the dark as the noise aggravated them further.
Any of the flying bullets could have hit him, but when he rolled behind a large stone, there was no time to feel relief that he was still whole. And as Boar crept along their three-story tall cage, he inevitably attracted the attention of the apes, to the point where he had sweat beading on his back because of the way they shook the thick mesh so close to him.
Drake was as swift as wind itself, cutting men down like trees. He didn’t even flinch when he ran out of bullets and slashed his next adversary’s tendons with a knife, endlessly moving forward like an unstoppable force, a tsunami of violence.
Hidden beyond an alleyway border dividing the animals from visitors, Boar crouched, squeezing his favorite handgun. Heat reached his face when Drake spiraled through the crowd of goons, his movements that of a bloodthirsty ballet dancer. Grabbing one of the thugs, he spun him around so the bullet intended for him hit another of Apollo’s men, then stabbed his human weapon in the throat. Where Boar’s specialty was brute force and sniping, Drake’s talents lay in balancing at the edge of the blade. It was as if the proximity of danger flipped a switch inside him and turned the somber man he was into a banshee.
Blood clung to his face and dampened the long hair that flew around his face in black streaks when he charged toward a tall man with a neat white beard and hair. At first glance, he looked like a handsome grandpa, but when Drake’s fury made him smile rather than recoil, Boar knew they had the right guy. Goons pulled their boss back, away from immediate danger, but when one of them shot straight at Drake, ground crumbled under Boar’s feet.
Drake fell back, hand pressed to his chest, and for the longest moment Boar forgot his friend always wore kevlar. There was no blood in sight, but pain still twisted Drake’s features as he rolled back to his feet, once again surrounded.
“I want him alive. I want them all alive,” Apollo shouted, and that was Boar’s wake-up call. The word all rang in his head like the heart of a bell, but there was no time for analyzing any of it anymore.
They needed a distraction.
He turned to the obvious answer and shot at the lock of the chimp enclosure. He swung the door open, but what he expected to be a loud, chaotic flood of animals, was barely a trickle when only two of the apes showed any interest in the open door.