38
EMERY
The guard leadsus to a window facing east and points to the adjacent building. I lift a brow. “What?”
“Mavestelli and his close associates are there.” He nods up to the fifth floor where I can barely make out a harsh line that connects the two buildings.
Gage pushes me forward a little so he can see too. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I let out a frustrated breath. It’s not like complaining about it will make things different. “After you.” I shoulder the guard and he nods, climbing out the window and snaking around the frame to a ladder on the side of the structure.
Damian groans. “What if he cuts the line when he gets to the other side?”
I press my lips into a firm line, then perk up with an idea. “Doesn’t Thomas have the rocket launcher? We should have a free signal again once we get up there. If he cuts the line, we’ll tell him to blow their asses sky high.”
The two of them laugh and Gage taps my helmet. “So sentimental over your father’s demise,” he jokes, but it only makes me clutch my rifle harder. It’s not like I want to kill him or take joy in it. It’s simply something that has to be done. He can’t be allowed to go on this way.
So much blood is on Greg Mavestelli’s hands. I pause and glance down to my own red-stained gloves. When I think of all the things I could’ve been… It was never this.
We climb the ladder and wait in the room as the guard retrieves the bent metal rods. I’m assuming we’re supposed to use them to cross the twenty-foot gap.
“Shit, there’s no way I’ll make it. I cut my hand when I crashed into that building on landing, and I won’t be able to hold on that far. I mean, there aren’t even handles.” Damian waves the rod around as if we can’t see it plain as day.
“You have to hold on, or you’ll fall to your death,” Gage says sternly and nods at the guard to proceed.
We watch in silence as he hooks the rod over the rope and then glides quietly across the dark space between the buildings. I narrow my eyes and can make out him on the other side waving back at us.
“He made it, Gage, you’re up?—”
My voice is washed away by Wraith’s sudden appearance in the doorway. His body is covered in blood. His helmet is missing and he has a nasty gash on the side of his head. He stares at us hollowly before muttering a single word, “Run.”
The three of us are frozen.
One second Wraith is standing there and in the next he’s knocked to the ground viciously, blood sailing through the air and splattering on the old stone floors.
Every sound is sucked from the air and my teeth skate together as horror fills my bones. Cameron is hunched over Wraith, slowly standing as he unsheathes his knife from our squad mate’s side.
Cameron’s head snaps in our direction, eyes black like a devil. One bleeding. Both crazed and wild.
He took the black injection.
Time gnaws at my heels as I scream, “Gage, fucking go!”
Gage already has his rod over the cord, so I shove him out the window. He lets out a clipped shout before he’s airborne.
Damian tucks close into my side and lifts his MK-17. “I’m going to have to kill him, Emery,” he says it so painfully. I shake my head vehemently and shove him behind me.
“I’ll kill you if you do. Go and terminate our target,” I snarl. He makes a sound of protest, but Cameron flicks Wraith’s blood from his blade and readjusts his grip.
“Don’t fucking die.” Damian sounds torn to pieces that he’s having to leave me, but I let out a relieved sigh when he goes.
Cameron circles the room, staring at me with eyes I remember all too well. They are the same ones I grew to know right before he attempted to end my life.
“This old dance again?” I say bitterly.
He doesn’t even blink. It’s like he can’t hear anything right now. The veins in his left arm are darker than the rest, indicating that it’s where he took the injection. I want to scream and let my weary bones fall to the ground and give in to this heartache. I want to fucking rest. I want Cameron at my side. I want us to have a breath of peace.
But this has to end.
