The Last Hero (Book 1): Ultra by Matt Blake Read Free Book Online Page B

this wouldn’t have happened. If Damon hadn’t booked for us to go to a stupid soccer match—something we never did—then we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be caught up in this.
    I thought about calling Mom. Telling her I loved her. But I wasn’t strong enough to do that. I’d call her and blabber on at her to get down here and help me, which wasn’t fair on her to hear.
    No. I was alone. Alone, even though Damon and Ellicia were just a few people in front of me. They felt so far away.
    I saw them battling their way down the stairs. The crowd of people thinned as they hurtled out of the exit gates. Damon and Ellicia reached it. They turned around, horror in their eyes. “Hurry up, Kyle!” Damon shouted.
    I could see that he wanted to wait. That he wanted to try and help me get out.
    But I knew that he couldn’t.
    It wasn’t safe for him to stay.
    “Please, man,” he said. I could see redness in his eyes. “Please… just hurry.”
    “I’m coming,” I said.
    It was already too late.
    Damon and Ellicia were out of the stadium.
    I thought I’d felt alone earlier, but it was nothing on the feeling I felt now. A coldness covered me. I felt disconnected, completely disconnected from anyone or anything that could help me. And it scared me. It terrified me. I just wanted to get out of here—just wanted to get out of here and get back home and never step foot outside again. Never.
    I battled my way through more of the people, desperate to take a deep breath. I could see the door getting closer. Hopefully, Damon and Ellicia would be outside, waiting for me. I’d be able to hold Ellicia’s hand, hug her, tell her everything was going to be okay.
    Because we’d been through this together. We had that in common. We’d both suffered here.
    I reached the bottom step when somebody walked around the side of the turnstiles.
    He was a dark haired man. He had a black mask pulled over his face, just like the gunman on the stands.
    Everyone on the stairs froze.
    It took a few seconds for anyone to realize what was happening.
    A few seconds, as the man pulled a rifle from behind his back and started firing at the crowd.
    I spun around. Went to run back up the stairs, heart racing, feeling myself scream. But somebody pushed me down. And then I could feel feet smacking into my back, knocking the air out of my lungs, stamping down on my ribs. I felt something crack, and it knocked the wind out of me.
    More feet clambered down whenever I tried to rise to my feet. I thought right then, the taste of blood strong in my mouth, that this was it. This was how I died. Crushed in a soccer stadium. Nothing more than a body on the floor.
    And then I found the strength from somewhere inside me to stand.
    To push my way up back into the crowd, gunfire sounding from both directions.
    To hurtle past people, pushing my way through them, back up the stairs.
    I wasn’t sure where to go as I ran up the stairs. Wasn’t sure whether to try turning around or go back out into the stadium, where most people would be gone; try getting down on the field.
    But as I looked in front of me at the easiest possible destination, a bitter irony covered me. In all this chaos, in all this trauma, it actually made me laugh.
    The restroom.
    Of course I was running to the frigging restroom. Again.
    I ran around the side of the restroom entrance. Threw myself past the sinks. There were more people inside. All of them battling for a cubicle to hide in, for somewhere to disappear until the attack was over.
    I rushed for a door on my right, but it slammed and locked before I could get inside. I tried another, but that was locked too.
    Behind, I heard shouting. More gunshots.
    Shit. I had to be quick.
    I reached the last two cubicles, the hope in my body disappearing. I tried the one next to the end… but shit, that was locked too.
    I was about to give up when I felt the final door on my right drift open.
    I looked inside it. Looked in at the white toilet, the tiny