VBT# Book Spotlight - Cut and Run - Annabelle Lewis
Synopsis: Cut and Run - Book #2 - Annabelle Lewis - August 2021
Their story continues . . .
The four Boston clairvoyants, blessed—or cursed—with special powers, must fight a ruthless enemy and stop injustice. In Dead Cat, Run, the Sisters of Fate drove them together, but at what cost? The God Apollo wasn’t playing around. He’s still dead set on vengeance.
Sinister forces will have a wicked agenda. An energy grab, a mineral rights war, and deadly mercenaries create a mortally serious game. But the psychics’ sibylline abilities aside, they’re only human. At least three of them are. (What’s up with that?)
Can they stop the killers? And who will survive?
An energetic contemporary thriller, Cut and Run will have you on the edge of your seat as the dance between good and evil resumes.
As they drove down a small gravel hill, Duke’s eyes roamed the parking lot. Relieved to spot the particular vehicle they needed, he pointed to it before slowly pulling up to the front door of the Granger’s Quarry office. He pressed the hatch button and got out, followed by Fiddler, and watched two more men on his team unload their own vehicle right behind them. They each grabbed a cheap AR15, all loaded with 30 round mags of 5.56 mm ammunition. One hundred twenty bullets should do the trick.
They closed the back ends of the vehicles, and Duke pointed to Thing 5 and then to the black F150 Ford truck they’d passed in the parking lot. Thing 5—or Alpha, as he was really known—was the number-five guy on Duke’s team and not yet deserving a personal pronoun. On Duke’s crew, a name had to be earned, but he was confident that Thing 5 knew what to do. Next, Duke’s focus turned to Thing 6, or Bravo. He pointed Bravo toward the front steps of the office and said, “Not until you hear me first.”
Thing 6 nodded as Duke and Fiddler headed to the green shed for the weekly BS meeting. Today, at least one of them will have something real to gripe about. The large industrial, metal shed next to the office had an eighteen-foot garage door open to the September elements. Duke could hear someone talking inside, so he raised his fist to stop Fiddler and quickly peeked inside. Sure enough, maybe fifteen guys sat in there, listening to some asshole at the front, yakking away—probably Chris Granger.
He pulled his head back and nodded at Fiddler. “Looks good. Here we go.” They moved their heads around the corner but held their weapons back. Duke yelled out, “Clyde!” One head turned around, and Duke recognized the face. They had the right guy.
After that, he and Fiddler walked in, raised their semiautomatic rifles, and opened fire. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Easy. The meeting broke up as body after body flew and went down in fast order with a bit of screaming, upturned chairs, and pointless running and ducking. Nothing unexpected.
Duke registered Clyde taking cover behind a large steel drum canister, and once he’d made sure all the other fourteen were either dead or nearly dead, he finally rounded the corner of the drum and set eyes on his final prey. Clyde Hinton, age eighteen, was squirreled into a ball with shaking hands covering his face, his young body cowering for cover.
“Fucking little asshole,” Duke said, pointing his rifle at Clyde’s chest. “You’re one lucky bastard, you know that? You listen hard now to what I got to say, kid.” He dropped the point of the gun to his side. “Open your eyes!”
Clyde did as instructed.
Duke leaned his face closer to the boy and hissed, “Run. Run far and run fast, Ringo. Don’t call the cops with that cell phone in your pocket. You touch it, and I’ll know. Then you’re dead for sure.”
Clyde’s eyes opened wider, and his body jerked as a few more pops echoed through the loud acoustics of the shed. Duke inched closer, his breath now directly warming Clyde’s face. “I know where you live, Ringo. I know your daddy is Mr. Sherman Hinton too.” Duke reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, which he thrust in Clyde’s face and ordered, “Read it!”
Clyde looked at it as Duke explained, “It’s a receipt from a fucking gun shop in Cloquet for a $550 piece-of-shit AR15 that has your name on it. You bought the gun. You did this crime, motherfucker.”
“I, I…” Clyde stammered.
Duke ripped the piece of paper out of Clyde’s hands and stuffed it back into his own pocket. “The original is in the office. Right by the time clock and your miserable name. You should collect it and whatever else you find in there before you run. But don’t worry; I’ll give you time to leave here alive—as long as you don’t use your phone. But remember, we’ll be watching.”
“We good?” Duke yelled at Fiddler who was leaning over, picking up a few shell casings.
“Good.”
Duke punched the nose of his weapon into young Clyde’s crotch, who pointlessly dropped his hands to cover his balls. “Run, Ringo. Cut and run. Do as I say, and don’t you ever look back. You call the cops and your old man, Sherman, burns alive. Got it?”
Duke walked away, passing a few bodies covered in bloody flannel. The distinct aroma of gun powder, blood, and death filled his nostrils and flashed him back to other equally satisfying missions. This one, though, was nothing like the others.
For many reasons.
Thanks for being on the tour! :)
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