Hunted (Dark Secrets Book 1) by Allie Juliette Mousseau Read Free Book Online Page B

blacktop. Five more Takers rappelled down from the top of the bus. I instinctively turned to run and was faced with a perimeter of six more. Eleven Takers! Surrounding us. Surrounding me!
    Before I had a chance to react, the woman with the stroller scooped up her fussy child and bolted into the middle of the road. Cars and trucks came screeching to a halt —some cars plowed into others. The man and woman who had been so romantic with one another were instantly wrapped in silver cord, despite their struggling, and vanished with their Takers. I watched as the broken dandelion fell to the grass.
    I turned in another direction to escape when I felt my backpack being grabbed from behind.
    "No!" I screamed as I struggled against the inevitable, like an animal caught in a snare.
    My attacker spun me to face him as if I were nothing more than a rag doll. He looked like a hot young actor who was supposed to be attending a red carpet event in Hollywood instead of a thug pulling off a kidnapping —they all did in their dark blue suits.
    I instantly planted my knee into his groin, but my kneecap met with a hard armored shell. I peered up into his hardened face and stunning purple irises as a wide sinister smile spread across his face. I tried reaching for the hunting knife at my hip, but before I could get to it he grabbed hold of both of my arms and pinned me against his body. I was embraced in some grotesque lover's dance.
    My hat was pushed off of my head as my cheek was crushed against him. I could feel the armor across his chest and stomach under his clothing.
    He began to tie me up with the silver cord. I wriggled my arms up and, thinking quickly, pulled a bobby pin from my braided hair. You can do a lot of damage to an assailant by jamming a bobby pin into their ear canal. I plunged the bobby pin hard into the tender opening and slammed it with the palm of my hand, forcing it in as far as it could go. The Taker howled in pain and dropped me to grab at his injured ear.
    I pitched myself to the side and away from him as he got tangled in his own cord and disappeared.
    I scrambled to my feet but my foot slipped, tearing at the earth beneath me. Instantly, I was hoisted by my upper arms into the air by a tall, fierce-looking Taker. He looked like he had seen what I just did to his buddy and was going to kill me for it. The hate on his face was intimidating and palpable, while his grip held me like a vice. I couldn't take a breath.
    My mind panicked as I thought, This is it, the fight is over. My legs and feet dangled uselessly underneath me.
    Then, impossibly, I saw Theron running hard at my Taker from behind. His visage was full of aggression, surpassing even that of the enemy about to kill me. Theron threw himself into the air above my assailant like a human missile and came down on top of the Taker with a forceful blow from his right fist to the side of the Taker's head. The Taker lost his grip on me as he was driven to one knee.
    I fell to my hands and knees and scurried away from their melee. Before the Taker had any chance to recover, Theron plowed his right elbow into the side of the Taker's neck. As the Taker fell closer to the ground, Theron drove a full front kick between the back of the Taker's shoulder blades, crumpling him forward into the grass.
    Theron ran toward me.
    "Behind you!" I screamed at him.
    "Get out of here!" he shouted back at me.
    I maneuvered between the groups of people fighting with Takers, got myself behind a car parked at the curb and crouched down.
    Theron grabbed a Taker who had come up behind him and flipped him over his shoulder onto the concrete sidewalk, knocking him breathless. Another Taker, seeing Theron's fighting abilities, came to the aid of his comrade. Theron caught the Taker's advance in his peripheral vision and leveled him with a double kick. The first kick was to his abdomen; then he sprung his leg back and drove it into the Taker's face, which brought him to the ground.
    Two more