I tightened my grip on the rifle, heart pounding with brutal certainty. Hydra had come to take her back.
And they’d have to kill me first.
41
Elara
The first shots cracked the dawn open like thunder. Rock shattered above our heads, dust raining down into the cave. Beckett yanked me back, his body braced between me and the spray of gunfire.
“Move!” he barked.
We burst from the cave mouth into chaos—Hydra’s trucks skidding across the ravine floor, engines howling, men spilling out with rifles raised. The desert swallowed sound and spat it back in ricochets and smoke.
Beckett dropped two before my boots even hit the sand. I kept low, knife still sheathed as I grabbed a fallen sidearm from the dirt. The weight of it settled into my hand like an old memory I wished I didn’t have.
“Left flank!” Beckett shouted.
I pivoted, firing before the man could line me in his sights. He crumpled. Another lunged from the ridge above. Beckett nailed him clean, the report of his rifle echoing sharp through the canyon walls.
We ran. Side by side. Bullets tore into stone around us, shards slicing skin, but we didn’t stop. We couldn’t. Hydra’strucks roared to life behind us, engines chewing sand, tires spitting gravel.
“Up the ridge!” Beckett’s hand caught mine, hauling me toward the jagged rocks that cut against the sky. My lungs burned, legs screaming, but adrenaline drowned the pain.
Halfway up, a burst of fire chewed into the rock at our heels. I slipped, sliding back. Beckett’s arm shot out, catching me by the wrist, dragging me up like I weighed nothing.
“You’re not going back to them,” he growled, eyes blazing. “Not while I’m breathing.”
I swallowed the ache in my throat, fingers tightening on his as we climbed. Above us, the ridge opened to another stretch of desert. Freedom—or another battlefield.
We crested just as a Hydra truck skidded into view below, men aiming upward. Beckett shoved me flat, firing down with sharp, controlled bursts. I added my shots to his, steel in my hands, rage in my chest.
One by one, they fell. But more voices shouted from the second truck, boots pounding sand.
“They’re not stopping,” I hissed.
“Neither are we.” He rose, hauling me with him, every line of his body carved in defiance.
We ran again, the desert stretching endlessly and mercilessly ahead. Hydra’s engines roared behind us, closer, faster.
The sun crested the horizon, blinding gold against the steel in our hands. And I knew this wasn’t just a fight.
This was war.
42
Beckett
The desert gave no cover, just endless rock and sand and the echo of Hydra closing in. Every step was a fight against gravity, against exhaustion, against the weight of Elara’s hand gripping mine like she refused to let me go.
The trucks barreled closer, engines snarling. Gunfire spat sharp and wild, rounds sparking off the ridge. One caught the stone inches from Elara’s shoulder. She didn’t flinch—just pressed closer, moving when I pulled.
“Keep low!” I shouted, dragging us into a dry wash cut deep into the earth. The ground dropped hard, forcing us to tumble the last few feet. Pain jolted up my side, but we landed in shadow, hidden from the ridge above.
Elara rolled to her knees, pistol raised, eyes burning. “We can’t keep running forever.”
“Don’t need forever,” I growled, racking another round. “Just long enough to thin them out.”
Boots hit gravel above. Shouts barked in Hydra’s tongue, commands sharp and cruel. Dust sifted down from the edge of the wash.
