Thane steps out from behind a palm tree, his own weapon trained on me with the steady apathy of someone who's done this dance too many times to count. He carries himself like what he is, a soldier who's seen too much and keeps going anyway.
"No?" He cocks his gun, the sound deliberately loud in the relative quiet of our little oasis.
"Please," I sneer, calling his bluff. "I know your type. Clinging to honor and chivalry in a world gone mad, because you think it's what separates you from the rest of the animals."
"Maybe," Thane concedes, those dark eyes never leaving mine. "So what does that make you?"
A gritty, humorless laugh tears from my throat. "A junkyard dog."
He scoffs under his breath. His gaze flicks to Cosima's unconscious form, then back to me, and I can see him making calculations. Weighing options.
"Put her down there," he says finally, nodding to a sheltered spot behind a small cliff face. The natural rock formation would provide decent cover from most angles. "Twenty paces north. Then all bets are off."
It's more than I expected. More than I'd probably give him if our positions were reversed. But that's the difference between soldiers and survivors, I guess. They still believe in rules, even when the world's gone to shit.
We lower our weapons slowly, neither of us quite willing to be the first to completely drop our guard. I keep my movements deliberate and visible as I gather Cosima back into my arms. She mumbles something in her sleep, nuzzling closer to my chest, and that small show of trust does something funny to my insides.
The sheltered spot is actually pretty good. Protected on three sides by rock, with decent sightlines to the fourth. I settle her carefully on the softest patch of sand I can find, making sure her head is supported. A strand of silver hair falls across her face, and I reach out to tuck it behind her ear before I can stop myself.
"Twenty paces," I mutter, more to myself than to her. "Try not to get yourself into any more trouble while I'm gone."
The walk feels longer than it should. My injured knee protests every movement, but I keep my gait steady. No point showing weakness now.
Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty.
Thane and I turn at the same moment, guns rising in perfect synchronization. His shot cracks first, the bullet singing past my ear close enough that I feel the heat. Mine follows a heartbeat later, equally close, equally ineffective. We're both too quick, too used to living a hair's breadth away from death.
Then we're moving, both ducking for cover as we empty our clips at each other. Bullets spark off rocks, kicking up sand and turning the air into a deadly lottery where the prize is keeping your blood on the inside.
My gun clicks empty just as his does. The sudden silence feels louder than the gunfire.
"Fuck," I mutter, tossing the useless weapon aside.
Thane does the same, and then we're closing the distance. No words needed. We both know how this goes now.
He moves like a soldier, every movement economical, every motion drilled into muscle memory through years of training. I move like a rabid dog used to fighting for his right to every breath.
His first punch comes straight and fast, textbook perfect. I duck under it, my street-fighting instincts kicking in as I drive my shoulder into his rock-hard midsection.
We hit the sand hard, grappling for position. He's strong, and we'd be evenly matched if I wasn't sporting more bruises than skin and running on fumes, but I didn't survive this long by fighting fair. My elbow finds his solar plexus, my knee drives toward his groin. Every dirty trick I've ever learned comes into play.
"How's that retirement treating you, soldier boy?" I grunt, managing to land a solid hit to his ribs. "Must be nice, all cozied up with your omega in a Surhiiran penthouse while the world burns."
"It's a villa, actually," he responds dryly, slamming his elbow into my gut and driving all the wind out of my lungs with a whooshingwoof. "And it's been relaxing," he adds, dodging my return strike. "Until now."
We trade blows, neither of us able to gain a real advantage. Doesn't help that I have a little Raven in my head the entire time, yammering things like, "Oh no, the daddies are fighting!"
Fuck, he'd better not be an angel on my shoulder now. I'd have to seal him in a jar and throw him into the damn ocean.
The abrupt thought fucks me up just enough for Thane to manage to flip me over his shoulder. Or tries. We both end up crashing to the ground, struggling to get our hands on each other's throats. The bastard knows tricks I didn't expect from someone so by-the-book. His thumb finds a pressure point in my wrist that makes my whole arm go numb, and suddenly our positions are reversed.
"Every soldier has his bad day," he growls as his hands close around my throat. "Looks like this is yours."
The pressure is immediate and devastating. My vision starts to narrow, black creeping in from the edges as my lungs scream for air. I claw at his hands, but his grip is iron, positioned perfectly to cut off blood flow to my brain.
This is it. This is how I fucking die. Getting choked out by a Ghost in the middle of fucking nowhere while Cosima lies unconscious and Raven might be?—
The shadow falls across us just before the rock comes down.
