“See? You got this.” He pauses for a beat, the racket and uproar from the war Ty and Gage must be engaging in closing in on me. “Remove the vent and break those girls out, Moonshine. I’m coming for you.”
Maybe that should be reassuring, but as I open each cell, coax out the terrified girls, and guide them toward our exit route, my husband’s agonizing wail breaches the comm, followed by Gage’s roared, “Motherfucker.”
Sounds of defeat.
TY
The bullet sinks into my flesh—straight through my left shoulder—the impact knocking me backward, but not before I get my own shot in. A hole through the asshole’s wrist. He won’t be shooting me again.
His squawking serves as a distraction for the others. Enough so I can flip the cabinets to build myself a barricade, lodge a shot in another guy’s temple, and report out.
“Five tangos engaged. One tango down. One incapacitated. Under heavy fire. And hit.”
The pings of bullets blitzing the cabinets mingle with the clamor of pandemonium unfolding in every goddamn direction while I’m stuck in this tinderbox without a fucking plan, my blood spilling out.
Adrenaline rockets through my bones—combat mode is an out-of-body experience. My heart thrums against my sternum, but my breathing steadies, my instincts sharpen, and pain is a distant sensation. Everything fades as my mind catalogs my surroundings,foresees a myriad of scenarios, grapples for the threads of victory. Listens. A single beat to compose a strategy. Every clink and thud and feathery brush of movement alerts me to their location. Usually, that’s accomplished from a perch, where I view what no one else sees, but I can conjure up a sky-high vantage point from any position.
It’s in my blood now—the artistry of regarding all the players of the game at once, discerning their moves, controlling the outcome. Even in survival mode, it’s a respite from the agony my mind generally suffers.
Rena’s pleas and cries bellow through the comm, along with Liam’s attempts to calm her, but I block them out—let them harmonize with the rest of the background racket—knowing he’ll get to her. That’s why I shoved her back in there.
“One minute out,” Gage reports. “Diversions in motion.”
Reinforcement. I can survive for one more goddamn minute.
Enhancing my barrier, I unload several rounds to keep them at bay. A few shots land on my marks. Although they’ve created their own blockade with the office furniture. And my sliver-of-darkness glimpse reveals that a few more security personnel have joined us.
At any second, they’ll decide to risk it and ambush me, so I pull out the stun grenades that I carry into any potential war zone, alert Gage with a simple, “Flash-bangs deployed,” in case he’s already here, and chuck them out there.
After keeping myself sheltered from the concussive wave for several seconds, I spring over the cabinet and storm the room.
In that solitary battering heartbeat, Gage barks, “Coming in behind,” as I bound from the shadows of the file room, shoot a stunned guard at close range, and knock him into another, who is unsteady on his feet. They both crash to the floor as the sprinklers rain down on us.
Various degrees of temporary paralysis are affecting the guards, depending on their position at the time of the blast. Those under cover of the furniture may not be out of commission as long.
Twisting around, I find Gage jamming his fingers, knuckle deep,into some poor fucker’s eye socket and wrenching the eyeball out with a beastly grunt until it hangs.
“Good to see ya, Big Guy,” I quip as another bold security guard emerges at the office threshold behind Gage, weapon aimed, so I fire on him, amplifying the maddening raucous of more screams.
Our time is limited before we’ve got another ditching-the-cops situation.
Unfortunately, that rush of water from the sprinklers must have revived a couple of the guys who were down because I sense movement, right as a bomb detonates somewhere outside.
I’m assuming Liam set off a grenade in the parking lot, drawing scrutiny away from us. The eruption also serves to further disorient the men rushing me.
I whirl around, and a blade pierces my outer thigh with a searing gash—probably intended for my stomach but miscalculated. That fucking hurts and really pisses me off. I knock him back with my elbow as another asshole darts into my peripheral vision.
All I see is fucking rapists. And the rage I try my damnedest to repress thunders in my veins.
Gage had the right idea. I jam my pistol into one pedophile’s eye socket and pull the trigger while ripping the knife out of my quad muscle with my injured-but-still-mobile arm and stabbing the other under the chin, up into his mouth.
Pain finally slices through me, so I release a strangled bleat just as Gage growls, “Motherfucker,” and snaps another guy’s neck.
A heap of carnage surrounds us, and although there are no more enemy soldiers willing to venture into this particular battle, our fight is long from over.
“How the fuck do you want to get out of here?” I wheeze, the loss of blood rendering me dizzy. Silver stars whiz across my field of vision as my stomach flips and flops. It may have been wiser to leave the prick’s knife in my leg, but whatever.
“We’re going right out the front,” Gage returns. “Nice and slowso you don’t aggravate those wounds. Lights out, chaos, and an explosion to investigate.”
