Read Seven Days to Forever for Free Online Page A

struck the armed man in the wrist. His gun fell into the avocado plant.
    They must be looters, Abbie thought, groping on the floor for her purse. She’d heard of looting in prolonged power failures, but she’d never dreamed it could happen so fast, and in her building.
    The two short men babbled something incomprehensible and took out more guns. Abbie saw the metal gleam in the light from the hall and screamed a warning to Flynn.
    Instead of retreating, Flynn advanced on the intruders. He unbuckled his tool belt, hung on to one end and whirled it through the air. The heavy, tool-laden, hard leather pouch was suddenly a weapon. It made a clinking thud as it connected with the closest man’s head.
    The man crumpled and fell to the floor. Flynn swung the tool belt again, dispatching a second man with the same brutal speed.
    Abbie clutched her purse to her chest and scooted backward, her shoes sliding through the leaves that now littered the carpet. What had happened to the nice, stable guy who liked children and had dinner with his parents? He was fighting off three armed looters all by himself, as if he did that kind of thing every day.
    The tall man, the one Flynn had hit with the flashlight, was clawing at the avocado plant, likely looking for the gun he’d dropped.
    In a move that Abbie had only seen in movies, Flynn spun around on one foot, swinging his other foot in an arc that connected with the tall man’s jaw. The looter flew sideways into the bookshelf. A geranium that had been on the top shelf wobbled and crashed on his head. He didn’t move again.
    “Oh, my God.” Abbie struggled to draw a breath. Her pulse was pounding so hard, her lungs didn’t work. “Oh, my God.”
    “They’re down,” Flynn said.
    He stated that as if he were making a report, she thought. She ran a hand over her face, her fingers shaking. “Oh, my God! ” she repeated. “What…who…?”
    “Throw the switch. We’re getting out now.” Flynn rebuckled his tool belt over his hips and strode over to where she was crouching.
    Switch? What switch? “But…” She shook her head, still trying to absorb what had happened. “Police. We have to call the police.”
    “Later.” He leaned down and reached past her to pick something up from the floor.
    It was the backpack she’d brought home from the class trip, she realized. “What are you doing?” she asked.
    He slung the strap of the pack over one shoulder and reached down to grasp her arm. “Damage control,” he said.
    “What? I don’t understand. Why—”
    “Later,” he interrupted. He pulled her to her feet with a strength that would have surprised her two minutes ago, before she had seen him in action. “Right now we’ve got to get you out before more of them show up.”
    “More? Do you mean more looters? But that’s why we have to call the police.”
    He shifted his grip from her arm to her wrist and started for the door. “We’ll call them from somewhere safe.”
    Abbie stumbled after him, stepping over the unconscious men who lay sprawled on her floor. Pot shards crunched under her feet. “All right, maybe we should call the police from somewhere else, but—”
    Her words cut off as the lights came on. She squinted at the sudden brilliance, then gasped at the scene the light revealed.
    Her neat, orderly apartment was in shambles. Leaves, potting soil and bright-red geranium petals were scattered everywhere. The men she had stepped over weren’t merely unconscious, they were bleeding. She felt her stomach roll as she saw the damage the tool belt and Flynn’s foot had done to their battered faces.
    Yes, Flynn had done that, she thought, her gaze snapping to the broad back that moved in front of her. He’d done it to defend her, but still, what kind of man was capable of fighting that viciously? He was an electrician, for God’s sake.
    And why had the power come back on when he hadn’t done any repairs?
    And why on earth did he want that green backpack?
    The