Free No Dawn without Darkness: No Safety In Numbers: Book 3 by Dayna Lorentz

mall?” Marco shouts. His cry echoes, mixing with the slap of several feet on tile.
    “Here!” Maddie yells, gasping, and grabs my sleeve.
    I stumble after her down the escalator, trying to calculate in my mind where on the second floor we will be. Maddie slows down, clicks off her flashlight. We crouch on the steps. She holds her hands over her face to muffle her breaths, which come in gasps.
    Please let them pass us by.
    “They’re on the escalator!”
    We are up and racing before we hear the first foot on the stairs.
    Ten feet onto the second floor, we run into a guy wearing a black robe with a bolt of glow-in-the-dark green paint across his face. “This is our floor,” he says.
    Maddie’s sucking air. I tug her away from the green-faced guy. Several gleaming headlamps bob down the escalator. We swerve around its railing.
    “Drop to the floor,” I whisper.
    We sink below the lip of the handrail. Maddie crawls past me, wheezing, and I follow her down the hall.
    “Hey!” the green-face shouts.
    “What the hell are you supposed to be?” one of the headlamps growls.
    Green-face shouts for backup. Maddie and I hide our shadows behind a garbage can. She buries her face in my shoulder, her breathing now frantic. I pat her on the back like that might help.
    A swarm of green-faces gathers in front of the esca-lators, wincing in turn as they are blinded by the sweeping beams of the headlamps crowded on the stairs. The scene would be ridiculous if they all weren’t armed to the teeth.
    “Where’re the two girls?” A headlamp girl, maybe the one who’d been holding me.
    “They ran.” The green-face holds a long metal pole with a small hook on one end across his chest like a lance. “Now it’s your turn. We’ll give you ten seconds to clear the steps.”
    “What makes you think you can tell us where to go?” Mike. It’s like he’s trying to start something.
    Another face-painted guy emerges from the black. It’s the leader we saw in the Halloween shop. He flexes his fists, each of which is crowned with metal claws. “What makes you think you can question us?”
    An arrow flies out of the black, piercing the clawed leader in the shoulder. He screams.
    The two gangs fall on each other. It’s total mayhem. Poles and bats and chains and hammers smash and clang. People scream. I swear I hear a bone snap. How can that sound be so clear?
    After less than a minute, it’s over. The green-faces whimper and groan in the hallway. The headlamps scurry away, lights bouncing back up to the third floor. The cries get softer, so I assume those who can’t walk are being taken somewhere by those who can. It’s not until Maddie holds my hand that I realize I’m trembling.
    “What just happened?” she asks. She alternates words with pulls on her inhaler.
    “Why would they do that?” I ask. A body lies splayed on the bottom of the steps. Less than a minute, and someone died.
    Maddie peeks around me. “Give a guy a weapon—” She takes another pull from her inhaler. “And he’s gonna want to use it.”
    Maddie lights a blue glow stick, then sips some water. I take a drink myself, nibble on a Snickers.
    “We’re back at square none,” Maddie says, chewing Skittles between wheezing breaths.
    “Wrong. We know Lexi was at the party. We start there. We are not giving up. We will find her, we will get into the HomeMart, and we will get you your medicine.”
    Maddie takes a final pull from her inhaler, then tugs a fresh mask over her mouth. “I like this in-charge Ginger.”
    She hugs my shoulder and I start to cry, but it’s dark, thank god, so she can’t see me.

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    ON THE WAY TO HARRY’S (THE MED CENTER)
    T he lamp pole I was using as a crutch snaps, and I fall onto Kris, who’s carrying Preeti.
    “Sorry,” I say, grabbing onto his shoulder. “I still can’t stand on the ankle.”
    “‘There’s always room for one more,’” Kris says in a voice. He adjusts his hold on Preeti, and we slog