Free Fury of the Six (The Preston Six Book 5) by Matt Ryan Page B

to the ground. She grabbed more items and threw them around like a crazy person. Gladius shook her head in admiration. The chick was crazy, but she was her kind of crazy.
    “I can’t take it in here anymore!” She picked up a pot and kicked the door to the hall open. Running down the hall, she slammed the pan into a small camera near the ceiling. Gladius, Hank, and Minter made sure to stay clear of any lines of sight from the camera and listened to her rant against her captors while destroying the hall and the next room over.
    “If she sells us out, you better kill her.” Gladius glared at Minter and he nodded his head.
    A few seconds passed and Gingy rushed back into the kitchen. “I hurt my hand,” she screamed. Blood dripped from her left hand as she rushed next to Emmett. “Come on. Let’s get him there.”
    The thought of touching Emmett again repulsed Gladius and she was happy to see Hank and Minter handling the load on their own. She kept behind Gingy, with her knife pointed at her at all times. She didn’t like how well the woman could act.
    Hank and Minter placed Emmett’s body into the tanning bed looking machine. Gladius remembered the few times she’d gotten into one, and the chills it gave your body as it repaired you molecule by molecule.
    Gingy closed the lid and punched in the commands. At the end, she fell to her knees, sobbing into her hands.
    Gladius might have comforted a distraught woman, but she was getting to know Gingy and was leery of how genuine the tears were. Hank on the other hand, didn’t have any such troubles.
    “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “Emmett’s one tough guy.”
    Gladius took a deep breath and held her tongue. She wanted to remind them of exactly who was in that machine. That man had tried to kill them all at one point, manipulated Joey and had Julie seconds from her death.
    “He used to be strong,” Gingy said and wiped her nose. “That is a shell of the man he once was. Emmett was the strongest, smartest person I’d ever known. What you all did to him, ruined him.”
    “He attempted to kill most of my friends at one point or another,” Hank said.
    “Only to protect us,” she said with her voice rising. “You all think you’re so righteous. You have no idea what Marcus is really trying to do.”
    “Enlighten us then,” Gladius spit out.
    She laughed and looked back at Gladius. “You’ll find out soon enough. You think he doesn’t know about your plans? Marcus knows everything .”
    “He’s not a god,” Hank said. “He can be stopped.”
    “In some worlds he is a god. . .” she whispered, turning to face Hank. “How do you know everything you’re doing right now isn’t just part of his plan? If he wants something to happen, it’ll happen.”
    “Like you down here?” Gladius said.
    The question sent her back to burying her face in her hands. Gladius held herself back from ending the woman. Every word she spoke felt like an angle. Of course Hank was eating it up. But she loved Hank for it. Bless a man who could care for his enemy. Gladius didn’t have it in her to spare Gingy and if the room was empty, she’d stab her in the temple.
    “I’m just a tiny part in Marcus’s plans,” she mumbled in her hands. “He barely talks to me. I just want it to go back to the way it was. The way it was before you all came into my life.”
    “That won’t happen,” Gladius said. “The world erodes everyone and everything; you’ll never be the same.”
    Hank looked at her with a frown. She sent him a smile. She didn’t want to sound morbid, but the longer you lived, the more you knew not to believe things would turn out for the better. The good guys hardly won. More than likely, the stronger person would win and on occasion, the lucky one.
    “How much longer?” Minter pointed at the machine holding Emmett.
    “Probably an hour,” she said.
    He huffed and took a seat at the back of the room with his gun resting on his lap.
    Gladius