"We make our own entrance."
“You and your fucking explosives,” Jupiter whispered. “Couldn’t that injure the girls?”
“Not from back here and not if I rig it to blow out, not in,” Kawan said. “And as long as the Gods align.”
“Sometimes you scare the shit out of me.”
Kawan moved to the rear wall of the room and placed his hand against it. Cheap construction, thin walls. "Shaped charge. Might be overkill, but it won’t do damage to our girls.” Kawan pulled a small breaching charge from his kit. "This'll put a nice hole in the wall without bringing down the whole building."
They positioned the charge at shoulder height then moved back to the minimum safe distance.
"Thor, we're about to make some noise," Kawan said into his mic.
"Copy. All units, standby,” Thor said.
"On three," Kawan said, finger on the detonator. "One... two..."
The explosion was smaller than Kawan had expected, but effective. A ragged hole appeared in the rear wall, large enough for a man to dive through.
"Go, go, go!" Jupiter yelled
Kawan went through first, rolling as he hit the cheap carpet inside. The room erupted into chaos—Wes spinning toward the unexpected breach, Mina shouting something in Spanish, the sound of chairs scraping across the floor.
The scene that greeted him turned Kawan's blood to ice.
Lark and Specs sat zip-tied to chairs in the center of the room. Lark's left eye was swollen nearly shut, a dark bruise spreading across her cheek. Blood trickled from a cut above her eye, and more blood stained the front of her shirt. Specs looked more terrified than roughed up.
Wes had his weapon up and was already firing, forcing Kawan to roll behind the bed for cover. Jupiter came throughthe hole a second later, going left as bullets chewed through the cheap drywall above Kawan's head.
"Well, well," Wes called out. "Look what the cat dragged in." The bastard sounded like they'd just run into each other at a bar. "Look what the cat dragged in."
Mina had moved behind Lark's chair, her pistol pressed against the base of Lark's skull.
"Drop your weapons or she dies," Mina shouted.
Kawan's rifle was trained on Wes, but he stole a quick glance at Lark's battered face. The barely controlled fury that rose in his chest burned fiercely.
"Let them go," he said, his voice deadly calm despite the rage burning inside him.
"I don't think so," Mina replied, pressing the barrel harder against Lark's head. "In fact, I think you two are going to drop your weapons and join the party."
From across the room, Lark met Kawan's gaze. Even beaten, even bound, there was still fire there. Still fight. And something else—an apology, maybe, for walking into this trap.
"Kawan," she said quietly, her voice thick from the injuries to her mouth. "Don't?—"
"Shut up," Mina snapped and struck her across the back of the head with the pistol grip.
Lark's head snapped forward, and a fresh trickle of blood ran down her neck.
That's when Kawan knew someone was going to die in this room.
16
RIVERSIDE MOTEL—NORTH CAROLINA
The taste of blood in Lark's mouth was metallic and sharp, mixing with the throbbing pain that radiated from her swollen eye down through her jaw. Every breath sent spikes of agony through her ribs where Wes had gotten enthusiastic with his fists after she'd called him a fucking traitor. But none of that mattered now.
Kawan was here.
