Until We Break Read Free

sent him flying into the wall.
     
    The other two lackeys exchanged worried looks before deciding to double-team him. But even with the two of them working together, they didn’t have any more luck than the first guy. Mr. X simply grabbed their heads and gave them a serious meeting of the minds.
     
    “That’s it!” Viro leapt to his feet and leveled a submachine gun at Mr. X. With no more regard for subtlety, he unloaded it on the mystery man. To his surprise, though, Mr. X was no longer there. He had somehow teleported to Viro’s side where he proceeded to relieve him of his gun and his consciousness. The KO’d mobster unceremoniously dropped to the floor.
     
    “I’ll notify the police. Don’t worry about the ones Viro had in his pocket; they won’t be around to cause trouble.”
     
    He turned to leave. When he got to the door, Marli found her voice again. “Wait! At least tell me your name.”
     
    He paused, apparently for dramatic effect. “My name is Ev Bannen. I’m the god of justice.”

 
     
     
     
     
    Scott Kinkade Presents

 
     
     
     
     
    A Divine Protector Novel

 
     
     
     
     
    Until We Break

Chapter I
     
     
     
    Within a few hours, Ev returned to Mt. Orleia, home of Divine Protector Academy. The secret school for gods was located inside the mountain that rose out of the Burno Sea like an angry behemoth. As always, he entered through the hangar—the only entrance—while making sure to avoid being seen by the crew. At this time of night, though, hardly anyone was working in there, and the dim lighting thankfully enabled him to hide from any eyes that might be prying.
     
    Beyond the hanger was a narrow hallway. As soon as he stepped into it, he heard, “Did you have fun?”
     
    Startled, he jumped back. “Come on, Maya! We talked about you not ambushing me.”
     
    Maya Brünhart gave him a wolfish grin. “Talked and rejected. I feel it is well within my right to ambush you whenever you do something stupid like sneak out to cause trouble, which you have been doing almost nightly the past few months. While wearing that ridiculous outfit, I might add.” He wore a trench coat with black shirt and pants, along with a slim headband he had poked holes in to wear as a mask.
     
    “This is what dark heroes of justice wear,” he insisted.
     
    She laughed. “You are many things, Ev Bannen, but ‘dark’ is not one of them. Believe me—I know dark.”
     
    She most certainly did. When she was just a child, a car crash claimed the lives of her parents. Forced to survive on the streets of Stiftung in the Murnau Islands, she was eventually “saved” by the evil god Belial who wanted her to infiltrate the Academy and help him collect blood from potential gods so he would open a portal to the dark realm of Gehenna and release both the giant Nephilim and the Tower of Babel (looking back, it sounded insane). Maya betrayed her friends and went with Belial to the Tower, but Ev, realizing she wanted to be saved, risked his very life inside it and managed to convince her to turn against Belial. She had been by Ev’s side ever since, even when he left the Academy to help Arcturus Reich activate the Ark of the Covenant to re-write reality. Of course, Arcturus had failed to mention everyone but he and Ev would be left to die when that happened. Ev ended up having to kill him to save the whole human race, but for selfish reasons. It was true he didn’t want to be guilty of genocide, but mostly he wanted to save Maya.
     
    And she had certainly changed over the last year and a half since they’d first met. She had gotten proficient enough at healing to get rid of the scars on her arm from when she used to cut herself while agonizing over the things Belial demanded of her. Now she wore a plain gray T-shirt and jeans instead of the bulky sweater that used to adorn her.
     
    “I am the god of justice,” he said.
     
    “You look like a rupt -store vigilante. And you keep coming back with more