He came at me again. We collided in a blur of fists, metal, and pain. His knife sliced a shallow line across my arm; I slammed him into the wall hard enough to rattle the bolts.
“Elara!” I yelled.
She fired once—clean shot. The bullet clipped Viktor’s shoulder, spinning him sideways. I surged forward, drove my knee into his gut, and ripped the knife from his hand.
He hit the floor, breath ragged, eyes burning like he still thought he could win. “You think killing me ends this?”
“No,” I said, pressing the barrel of my rifle against his chest. “But it’s a damn good start.”
He smiled through the blood. “Then do it, soldier. Show me how merciful you really are.”
I hesitated—just for a heartbeat.
That’s when he swung. His hand came up fast, slamming a detonator against the floor. The ground shook—the dull, heavy sound of timed explosives arming somewhere below.
“Beckett!” Elara screamed.
Viktor’s laugh echoed off the steel. “You can’t win, Guardian. You can only burn with the rest of it!”
I pulled the trigger.
The shot split the air. Viktor fell back, the detonator clattering from his hand. For a moment, everything stopped—sound, motion, even breath.
Then the timer began to beep.
Elara’s eyes went wide. “Beckett—”
“I know!” I grabbed her wrist, dragging her toward the exit. The timer screamed faster.
“Cyclone!” I barked into the comm. “We’ve got explosives armed under the port floor—get everyone clear!”
His voice came back panicked and loud. “How much time?”
“Not enough!”
We ran, boots pounding metal. Behind us, Viktor’s body slumped against the wall, that damned smile still frozen on his face.
We didn’t look back. There wasn’t time to.
85
Elara
The world detonated behind us.
Heat roared down the corridor, chasing us like a living thing. The blast hurled a wall of smoke through the doorway and turned the air into knives. Beckett’s hand clamped around mine, and we ran—no time to think, no time to breathe.
Metal screamed. The warehouse floor buckled, cranes toppling in slow, terrible arcs. Fire poured through the shattered ceiling, swallowing the night in orange. My ears rang, my body running on instinct.
“Go! Go!” Beckett shouted.
We dove through a side hatch just as the bay erupted again. The pressure wave threw us across the loading dock and into a pile of debris. My shoulder hit concrete; sparks danced in my vision. Beckett was up first, dragging me with him, his voice raw.
“Cyclone—status!”
Static crackled. Then Cyclone’s voice—hoarse, urgent. “Whole port’s coming apart! You’ve got one minute before secondary charges blow the dock supports! Get clear now!”
“Copy,” Beckett snapped. He slung his rifle over his back, grabbed my hand again, and sprinted toward the open yard. Fire chased us, licking at the ground.
